


After the Storm, Before the Hurricane

by Drxxmingofblue, Loki_The_Mad



Category: Original Fiction - Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Asylum, BoyxBoy, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Freeform, Gay, HeroxVillain, M/M, ManxMan, MxM - Freeform, Original Fiction, Superheroes, Supervillains, bxb - Freeform, hero - Freeform, hero x villain, mlm, original fic - Freeform, slowburn, super villain, superhero, villain, villain x hero - Freeform, villainXhero
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 57
Words: 126,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24057970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drxxmingofblue/pseuds/Drxxmingofblue, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Loki_The_Mad/pseuds/Loki_The_Mad
Summary: Greyson “Corvid” Calva was the greatest super villain in New York City. Emphasis on was. His rival, a hero only known to him as Euclidi, has finally turned him in after ~7 years of fighting. Corvid pleads guilty to all of it, but he doesn’t get the death penalty, and Euclidi is furious. Who is the true hero, and who is the monstrous villain?
Comments: 31
Kudos: 55





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is a long-term roleplay that we both agreed to post! As such, it may not flow as smoothly or parts may not make sense. I’m editing before I post, but I might miss something. Brownie points to anyone who points it out!
> 
> On that note, credit to my friend and roleplay partner! The parts that are wayyy better are theirs. I wouldn’t have posted this if they weren’t such a good writer! They get credit for Euclidi and everything about his character.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome! (if this gets popular enough)
> 
> Enjoy!

**WARNING**

This work is under editing.

I feel that I've misrepresented Greyson's dissociative identity disorder as whole. I plan to adjust that so I can portray it as accurately as possible. I apologize for the inconvenience- it's a very slow process. 

I'll add a source page as well so you all can look into DID for yourself. I've also asked a system about their experiences. Please do not take my work as a perfect representation- it's far from that. I'm doing the best I can.

Chapters that have been edited will have a notice in the notes. Currently chapters 2-4, 27, and 28 have been changed. 

Thank you.

-Loki

Edit: Sources. I'll add more as I find them

[ https://did-research.org/did/alters/functions ](https://did-research.org/did/alters/functions)

[ https://real-did.tumblr.com/post/155921238421/writing-characters-with-did ](https://real-did.tumblr.com/post/155921238421/writing-characters-with-did)

[ https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-write-a-character-that-has-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder-without-misrepresenting ](https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-write-a-character-that-has-Dissociative-Identity-Disorder-without-misrepresenting)


	2. Visit Me, Euclidi

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter is edited

Back and forth, back and forth the villain paced. His fists were clenched so hard it hurt. The stiff white clothing he wore shifted over his chest, the tips of the marks that covered his body just peaking up over the edges. He’d been in the Facility for just over two months, and so far they’d had no luck getting him to calm down. They’d also had no luck getting the hero to come visit him, in his thinly-veiled cell. 

His room was sparse, with furniture made to be completely fire resistant and indestructible, so instead he’d just thrown it around. His fits of anger never seemed to stop. His fire was out of control, and his nails regularly dug into his skin. Nothing could be done about them, not that the nurses had found. 

That was why they were trying so desperately to get the hero to come visit him, and yet each time, he’d stubbornly refused. One couldn’t blame him; the amount of times Corvid had beaten him, broken him, torn him apart was uncountable. And when he’d finally put Greyson behind bars, only to find that he wouldn’t be sentenced to death? He wasn’t the only one of millions who were furious. By now, the nurses were begging, pleading just for him to come and visit Greyson. Just once. Just to see if it would work. 

Two months later, the hero’s wounds were finally healed, albeit jaggedly, and he’d reluctantly accepted the invitation. He was waiting outside the room, watching the cameras as Greyson tore the cell apart, watching as his muscles contracted and rolled furiously. That was the same man, who had torn the hero apart and _laughed_ , now tearing himself apart in his own insanity. 

"The walls are made of titanium and carbon fiber... in a hexagonal grid?"

It was the first thing the hero had said since he'd entered the viewing room. The nurse at his side started a little at the voice, then coughed uncomfortably. "Yes, sir, it-"

"It's a little overkill, isn't it?" 

The hero smiled, watched the nurse huff and stutter and say something about the necessity of extra caution. It wasn't anything he hadn't already heard. But behind the fear in the civilian's face, he could see the slightest bit of ease relax the nurse's shoulders. To think that maybe, because the hero wasn't alarmed, that there wasn't as much to worry about as the world might think there was. 

It was all mind games, wasn't it? Marion asked them to leave, then. He asked them all to leave the wing while he showed himself to the supervillian, because he was pretty sure he knew what the outcome was going to be. As soon as the hydraulic locks on the doors behind him hissed closed, he let a deep sigh escape. 

He _was_ worried.

Marion pressed his thumb against the keypad and waited for the doors to slide open, flexing his hand against the familiar tug of newly healed flesh from the still-forming scar stretching down over his palm. There was a room parallel to the holding cell. He lit up the window, activated the microphones, and flicked the switch so the clear panel between the two of them wasn't one sided anymore. 

"Corvid," The hero said softly. "I'm here. Look at me."

He froze with his back to the hero, his whole body ridged. He wore no mask. No suit, no cape. And yet it was clear that this _was_ Corvid. The way he held himself, the way his hair fell just so. The way his shoulders rose and fell with each harsh, panting breath, the way his clothes draped over his body, as if they were wearing him instead of the other way around. It all screamed Corvid, Corvid, _Corvid._ He was so frighteningly recognizable, it was a wonder he hadn’t been caught sooner. 

He’d seen the villain tearing himself and his room apart, and then, he looked like a monster. He looked like the villain, the animal that didn’t even deserve to be called sub-human. But now? He was a literal deer in headlights. His whole body was stiff in a way that Marion hadn’t seen before, hadn’t been _allowed_ to see before. A way that Greyson hadn’t allowed _anyone_ to see before. His stature was far from small, but he held himself like he wished it was anything but. Greyson was _scared._ Well and truly scared of the man behind the glass. It was… sobering. 

Blood stained the floor, from one wall to the other in a near-perfect straight line. His heels were what was bleeding, having paced and walked in circles for so long, it wore through his skin. The dark red and dripping lines on his neck and chest, as well as his wrists and upper arms were also a source of the villain’s humanity practically draining from his body. The villain was scared. As terrified as he was terrifying.

"You know who I am."

The voice wasn't in the room with the villain. But it might as well have been, for the clarity of the audio. The faintest static hissed in the hero's voice, a testament to the powers that burned latent beneath his own wound tattered skin. Marion's mask flickered faintly. Just a shroud of blue plasmic light covering the upper half of his face like a sheath of anonymity. He wasn't wearing his regular gear. He wasn't carrying a weapon- not that he did usually, either. He didn't need one. His powers were flexible like that.

"And I know who you are. We know why you're here," The voice continued, frayed around the edges, fuzzy with wear but taut and strong as the fibers of a steel rope. "So the only thing left is for me to tell you why _I’m_ here."

He glanced around the cell, and his brows knit together. "But I take one look at you and think you know already."

His hair was longer than it had been, the last time the hero had seen him. It now trailed down to the nape of his neck, instead of to his chin, where it had been the last time they met. He hadn’t allowed anyone to touch him, and they hadn’t allowed him to be trusted with anything marginally sharp. It wasn't worth sedating him to cut it. This was only proven by the facial hair, which hadn’t been there when he’d been forced to his knees and cuffed. It was blond, and matched the long hair on his head.

He was silent through his speech, and then silent for a moment after. “I didn’t ask you here.” His voice was hoarse and strained, a frayed rope rather than a steel one. He hadn’t said a word to the nurses the entire time he’d been here, that was for sure. “And I don’t particularly care why you’re here.”

He wasn’t clawing at his own skin like an animal, and he wasn’t tearing apart the room, either. As long as he was talking to Marion. That was progress, wasn’t it?

"Can't find it in you."

It was more a statement than a question. It was clear that his nemesis had been _frantic_ with rage and fear and whatever else Euclidi didn't intend to give him the indignity of glossing over it. He'd never been one to toy with with, unlike the villain. "I'm here to talk you down," The hero continued, sighed, shifted a few steps closer to the transparent shield- he wouldn't call it glass. They wouldn't put something so weak in his cell.

"I'm here on behalf of the people who'd rather put several bullets through your head and chain your corpse to a cement block on the bottom of the ocean before they'd speak a single word to your face. I'm here," And for a moment, the long breath he pulled in was shaky, was _human_ and not the larger than life act of bravado put on for friend and foe alike. "Because you have lost, and we have to figure out what to do next. Aren't you going to face me and try to have a say in that?"

Greyson didn’t move. He didn’t answer for a long, long time. He listened to his monologue, to every word of truth, most of which was unpleasant. He remained in his frozen, waiting state for just another still moment.

Until he spun around and slammed a blazing fist to the exact point where Euclidi’s face was. It remained there as he spoke. “You’re here to talk me down, eh?” He lifted his head to glare into his visor, and into his own reflection in the glass. His own were two different colors. That was... odd. It would’ve been pretty, had they been on any other face, and didn’t show the pure anger that his did. 

“You’re here to talk me down. You’re here to tell me that every other person on the planet wants me dead. I’m part of that number, love. You want my say? Kill me. Put that goddamn bullet through my skull, or let someone else do it. Let me do it, for all I care. End me. I _dare_ you.” 

Euclidi's posture shrunk away. It was impossible to ignore the pounding in his skull, the prickling of some instinct in the survivor in his head that told him he was in danger, in peril, that he needed to pull out his power and just fucking cave the walls in. He took a step back and regarded the wild look in the villain's eyes, the way he could see the bloodshot whites and the dim blue of his own visor mirrored in them.

"So you really are through." He tilted his head. It was also impossible to ignore the prickling in his _gut._ What could he say? He was tired too, tired of the endless cycle of fighting and blood and innocent death, tired of letting himself be torn to pieces like a rag doll for the sake of a world he'd never gained anything from. But morals were an occupational hazard and he always had been a bleeding heart towards helplessness. 

"Why? You know I could take care of you, if you'd let me." 

And there it was, the question he'd had to ask a thousand times over. Even when he'd known what the answer would be. 

"I can take your powers away, using mine," he said, sounding tired. "And then they wouldn't call you a threat anymore. You wouldn't be hunted, you wouldn't have a target on your back. You would have enemies, sure, but the state would provide in exchange for compliance. You know we _can’t_ risk anyone else's life, Corvid."

His hand reached up to where the fist had slammed against it, and the fingers through their thick glove were trembling slightly as he placed his hand against the pane. "No one else would have to die," the hero murmured. "No one. Not even you." 

_I can take your powers away._

Those were the words that broke him. 

Those were the words that made him fall back, fall to the ground. Those were the words that made him clutch his hands to his chest, tuck his head down, and bite his lip until it was bloodied. Those were the words that made all his work invalidated, those were the words that meant he’d never had to be a villain. Those words, to him, meant that he could have had a chance. A small one, but a chance. And it shattered him into a million pieces.

After a long moment of trembling, and choked, not-quite-held-back sobs, he turned his gaze up to where his palm pressed against the glass. “You could’ve saved me eight years of torment and panic attacks. Broken hearts, minds, and families. You could’ve saved thousands of lives just by telling me you could make it stop... and you… didn’t...”

He tilted his head back and let out an agonized scream. The kind of scream that Achilles let out when he discovered Patroclus’s death. The kind of scream that rocked a building, that was felt by everyone near, if not heard. 

That scream was one of years of suppressed pain and emotions. It was one that broke Greyson’s voice, and made his last sentence a whisper. “You could’ve let me go...”

The fingers curled against the slick, polished surface.

The hero's eyes were wide, pupils shrunk to pinpricks of some horror. 

Oh, he knew pain. He knew the soft, wet ripping sound of his own skin, the feel of a blade sliding under it, cold and foreign and beyond agonizing. He knew the snap a bone made when it crunched in his body, knew what it felt like when his own sinews snapped like cut cords. He knew torture, long and slow and blocking out everything but the pathetic, all consuming desire for it to stop, go away, _please, anything_ \- and he knew what it meant to lie awake night after night, with a mind filled with the demons and monsters that said unspeakable things to him, in the voices of people who had all spoken them out loud in the past.

He didn't think he'd ever been in enough pain to make a noise like that scream.

Was that what he'd wanted? Or was this another game?

He let the silence stretch out, so it was only the dull hum of machines… monitoring the villain, tracking his every move. There were weapons behind the walls, and the hero knew that. Even if Corvid broke free of his confines, there was no telling what he'd be met with on the other side.

The hero reached up, and touched something on the side of his head, and the visor flickered and went out, leaving his face bare. His dark brows were knit together. His voice was a little choked. "...I don't know you," the hero replied. And he had to fight out the next reply, because it hurt like hell, fighting the part of him that desperately cried out for revenge. "But I could. And I could take this all away. It's still not too late for you."

“No.” He agreed quietly. “You don’t. I don’t ever want you to.” He leaned over and buried his hands in his hair, refusing to look up at him. Refusing to show his face, to see his.

“I don’t know if I want another chance or if I want the pain to stop...” he was… still considering it. Death was still an option, in his mind. Death over everything he’d ever worked for. The pain of the marks in his body had to be nothing compared to the overwhelming pressure of every pain of his life, all weighing down on him. 

Greyson “Corvid” Calva had been locked in a single room with nothing but his thoughts for two and a half months. He had been burdened with every life he had ended, and all for his failed efforts, for two and a half months. His panic attacks were written off as tantrums, his fear written off as fury. He pulled himself to his feet and took four slow steps, until he was in front of the window. He sank to his knees in front of it. “I beg of you, Euclidi, make them stop. Take them from me. I know I don’t deserve it, but-“ a teardrop dripped down his cheek. “Please...”

The silence ticked by again, leaving each mind in isolation. Marion had never considered thought to be a personal thing, though. It always seemed to him that the whole institution was one vast ocean of speculation that his mind could only barely broach- and that if he tried to think too much, too hard, every single word and wondering would come crashing down on his shoulders. It bore heavy on his mind, then. 

His lips flickered downwards, into a frown. 

They'd explained how the holding cell worked, while he was en route to the facility. They'd explained a lot to him. But not barely enough, it seemed.

He reached over with one hand, flicked the cover off a glass panel, and tapped a few things. The walls of the cell shuddered, like they were in the belly of some beast. A door slid open off to the right, and he stepped into the room, trying not to wince as they slid shut almost immediately. As if they themselves were afraid of releasing their prisoner. The chains on his boots clanked softly as he crossed over to the villain. 

"I'm trusting you with this," He murmured. There was no malice left. Almost nothing left in his tone. "Because I know some of what it means to be hollow. If you want me to do it, I need to take your hand."

And he extended his. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	3. They’re Gone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have dozens of chapters written, I just need to edit them. Anyway, enjoy! Fan art is welcome if this is ever that popular, credit to my friend and roleplay partner!
> 
> -Loki
> 
> *This chapter is edited

Only Greyson’s head turned from his place on his knees. He looked up as the room trembled, as if it were in as much fear as he was, then to his right when Marion entered. His eyes finally met the face of the man who was indirectly responsible for years of torture- for that was what it was. Greyson didn’t blame him. He didn’t dare to. Not now, not ever. Not when this was the only man willing to give him a chance, any chance at all. 

A flicker of humiliation sparked in his throat- he’d begged on his knees to this man in front of him. His stomach made him wary of the hand held out to him, and the small of his back reassured him that he was wearing gloves. Fear came from behind his eyes, an ever-present emotion, but not nearly as bad as before. Fury held itself in the soles of his feet- why hadn’t he said anything sooner? Why was it now, when he was broken and giving up, that he revealed this to him? Excitement, mild but present, made itself known in his diaphragm, under his rib cage, and sorrow squeezed it silent from his sides. And... hope. Hope blossomed under his rib cage, on the left side of his chest. Over his heart. He gripped his hand.

And the hero's eyes lit up.

Or, it wasn't so much they lit up, as they began to glow, pulsating, shifting pools of blue in the twin irises, like they were every facet of a shimmering opal showing at once. Euclidi had always kept his eyes covered before, always the shimmering mask of light to protect his identity, and protect the light from spilling out into the room as it did now.

His grip was strong, and it was more than just his hand. There was some force tugging at the villain's entire body, a firm and steady pull against each and every atom and molecular structure, burning and all-encompassing and raw. The hero's eyes fluttered shut then squeezed in concentration but blue still spilled out from under his lashes like some odd mutated version of sorrowful tears. 

Marion had never spoken of his powers, and he'd kept mainly to what he knew. The ability to shift molecules and reform them, to see the microscopic structures and control them with a single whim- it wasn't easy to control, so he'd focused most of his training on something easy, like metal. That he could do. Reforming whatever mutated DNA Corvid had lived with his whole life- it wasn't the same. But he'd had practice on people before. 

His powers covered the kneeling figure- shimmering blue like liquid mica. His mind was far away, deep in some infinitesimal level where he could take and rebuild this broken soul, piece by agonizingly small piece.

And then he stopped. Let his eyes flicker open, let his powers die down. The world came woozily back into focus. His lungs were screaming for air like they'd just been turned inside out. But he was done.

The fear pressing behind his eyes grew, but so did the hope in his chest. It blossomed and bloomed and encompassed his whole body, until it was overwhelmed by raw power he’d never felt before. Even at his best- or worst, depending how you looked at it- he wasn’t half as powerful as the man in front of him. A million thoughts, questions, wonders flooded his mind, until they, too, were overruled by the beautiful blue light. Only one thought made it through: _How did I escape this man for so long_? Before it was sucked under too, and melded into the light. He didn’t feel like Corvid anymore. Or Greyson, for that matter. 

If space could feel something, anything, it would feel like this. Later, when recounting the event, he would say it felt like stars. That was the best word to describe it.

He bowed his head and shifted to one knee, facing him. It felt appropriate to kneel before such a figure. The hero before him was not a man. He was above mankind. A god. A true, real hero. And just as quickly as it had begun, it stopped. It left him feeling like he was missing something, and he knew what that something was. The light faded, and he blinked. He couldn’t speak. He didn’t dare say the first word after that. He had no words to say.

Real, solid ground under his feet.

That was something he was grateful for. The light-waves, dancing in ripples that were far too fast for even his superhuman eyes to catch. The colors, which the world was saturated in, every shade on every spectrum, splashed in every single thing he could look upon. He was grateful for those.

And he was grateful, too for the feel of his own self, his own presence, the heavy warmth of his flesh wrapped around his soul and his blood pumping through the precious and fragile veins of his own heart. These things, real, and solid, were what came to greet him every single time he returned to reality, from diving deep into his abilities.

Corvid's hand was real, and solid- he still gripped it. The hero was standing still, breath held in his body. He stared down at the man kneeling at his feet, and let the gasp spill past his lips, let himself pull in the beautiful, precious thing that was oxygen, let it turn him human again.

He knelt, too, unable to tower over the other figure, not when there was something sparkling in Corvid's eyes that he'd never seen before. And he didn't know what it meant, but it prompted the words from his lips, unbidden, as though it were some sacred thing.

"You're free, now."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	4. Someday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fan arts are welcome if this gets popular enough! 
> 
> -Loki
> 
> *this chapter is edited

He had a similar experience when he came back, although it was nothing quite as intense as what Marion felt.

He could feel something missing. Two things, actually. His powers, for one, but Marion’s powers too. They’d felt so impossible, incredible, it almost made him wonder how he’d ever wanted his own gone. The fear behind his eyes had no trouble reminding him.

He squeezed his hand, tighter than he had before, looking up and meeting his eyes, the hope gone from his heart. What replaced it was an emotion he hadn’t thought he’d ever feel again, one he hadn’t felt in a long time. And Gods, had he missed it. Tracing from his chest, through his veins, down to the anger in his feet to the fear in his eyes, joy covered his entire body.

Tears poured from his eyes again, and this time he felt no humiliation. He didn’t try to stop them. He let out a laugh at his words. “I am. I’m... free. It’s over. Today is the day.” He nearly fell forward laughing, instead falling into his arms. “It’s over. What’s the date, and the time?”

Euclidi had to swallow something of a panic flare that rose up in his chest, at the movement. Returning to a grounded state meant returning to the presence of his own mind too.

He knew that this man wouldn't hurt him, anymore, not easily at least. But he had before. And he had _loved_ doing it. All the same, the defensive snarl was muted and pushed down, and he let the man fall against him, and marveled, because Corvid was warm, and real, and human too, a weight against his chest.

One of his hands was on the villain's (could he call the man that anymore? He wasn't sure.) shoulders, and the other fluttered to the harsh chill of the seamless metal floor to steady them both.

 _Of course,_ the hero thought. _Of course. There are no windows in here._

"It's spring," He murmured finally, letting his eyes drift upward towards the ceiling as if he could see past it. "April 15. About… three A.M, now. The sun will be rising in a few hours. The flowers'll open up when it does."

He didn't know why he'd added on that last bit about the dawn. He turned his head slightly, glancing down at the human against him. His lips parted, and closed. "...do you still want to die?"

“Spring.” He whispered. “It’s...” he laughed a bit again. It wasn’t like his laughing when he’d hurt the hero, wasn’t like the smirks and smiles and grins. His laugh was real, and he sounded like a child. “Three a.m. Why the hell did you come at three a.m.?” He gripped Marion's shirt in his hands.

Greyson hid his face in his shoulder, not quite making contact with his skin. He’d had a bit of practice at that. And that meant he could feel him hesitate, practically feel the fear rising in the hero's throat. But he couldn’t bring himself to pull back. The red that stained his clothes and covered his skin, such an evident attempt on his life now that he was so close, dripped onto the floor. It hadn’t stopped. It was all over him, the floor, the walls. He’d need a shower, and bandages. And the nurses wouldn’t have to wear gloves when they did it. 

“No.” He whispered. “No. I want to touch someone for the first time. I want a first kiss. I want a lover and a small apartment way upstate, where it snows really hard. I want children, and I want to raise them right. I want to love them no matter what. I want _love_ , Euclidi. That’s it. I want love.”

Something twisted in Marion's expression, some saddened version of a smile at the irony of it all, because god _damn_ if Corvid hadn't just described the unbidden longings he'd long since gotten used to pushing down into some dusty corner of his heart.

"Then you'll find a hell of a lover and make them the luckiest person on the planet," He replied, as if it were a simple fact, and an arm finally wrapped around Corvid's shoulder- not exactly hugging him- it was the sentiment of stabilizing him, of agreeing with the thought because for all the hell they'd both have to face outside the containment chamber, there was a bubble now and Marion comprehended dimly that it wasn't his place to pop it.

"I came at three A.M," He continued with a little, breathy chuckle, "Because they wanted me over here as soon as I was discharged from the hospital. I got off their monitoring list yesterday night."

He didn't mention the paperwork- the reporters, the police and doctors, the questions and probing eyes and the urgency of the long checklist he'd had to complete before he could snatch a precious few minutes of sleep alone in the transport car. The media was already wild. There were no official reports giving substantial information about what had happened, but that didn't stop people from trying to fill in the gaps. It was the final, epic showdown, they said. The insurgent ending battle between Corvid and Euclidi, the fight to end all fights. There was a parade in the streets. A celebration ceremony. Euclidi had been in a coma in the hospital through most of it- for a week afterwards, in fact. The rest had just been a blur.

He didn't mention how long it's taken him to work up the courage to step through the front doors of the facility. How the bile had burned in his throat as they'd described Corvid's condition to him. How the vengeful thoughts crawled out of the corners of his minds and begged him to let them take root and grow, into something ugly, something twisted.

All he knew now was that there was a man in his arms, a lost soul with tear-stains on his cheeks and the tiniest thread of hope for a future lived in something other than darkness. And Marion knew he'd never be able to bring himself to crush that.

He also realized, with a bit of a start, that it was more than tears making his shirt wet. "You're still bleeding," the hero whispered, faintly, "I can- I can help with that, if you'd let me?”

Greyson gripped his shirt with one hand.

He knew that there was some truth behind his words, knew that he could find a lover, but he also knew how unlikely that was. He knew of all the what-ifs lingering in the back of his mind. _What if they fake it for the fame? What if they’re killed by protesters? What if I kill them somehow?_ What if, what if, what if. They flooded his head. There was so much bad that could happen from here, and he had been so focused on getting his powers gone that he’d forgotten his powers weren’t his only problem. Far from it.

He had heard stories, of the parades and festivals and parties in celebration of his loss. The nurses spoke of them in sparse detail when they passed through.

He was clueless, though. He was clueless of the closure thousands of families had gotten when he was taken down, and of the thousands of families who weren’t satisfied with what he got. He was unaware of those trying to break him out, those who admired him, the crimes he had inspired, unaware of the people who wanted him to rise to power again.

He didn’t realize that his name all over the news meant that he’d lost his place in college. It meant that everything he had done, worked for, and had was open to the public.

What he had known of was the vengeance that nearly everyone had wanted. He had known that if anyone deserved to get their revenge, it was Euclidi. And he hadn’t taken it.

Greyson felt clueless, really clueless, for the first time. “I am, aren’t I...?” He murmured. “I-Yeah... you can help me, but... I want the first time I touch someone to be something special.”

Out of all the things they'd said in the conversation that night under the harsh fake-sunlight glare of the lights shining through the seamless metal grates in the ceiling, Euclidi didn't know why that last, simple statement was what made something squeeze painfully in his throat- why suddenly the far wall got blurry under the unshed tears he blinked back hastily. Maybe this was all just catching up to him. Or maybe the implications of it just hurt too much to think about for too long. _'The first time I touch someone'._ Such a simple thing. Such a human thing.

"Easy enough," Was all he said, trying to put a jovial tone in his voice out of habit alone, pulling back slightly, just enough so he could slip his arm to the front and tug on the gloves over his hands. "Here-"

His hand reached up to the blood oozing sluggishly from Corvid's neck. It looked painful. Raw, and open, just like the way his voice had been. "Let me-" Euclidi's eyes flicked up briefly to meet Corvid's as if making sure it was alright, before he let the blue light spill back out of his appendage, eyes shifting in the opalite glow again as he gently ghosted two fingers down the slit in the skin, concentrating as it slowly began to knit itself back together.

He’d pulled away a bit, too, when Marion scooted back to heal the wounds. His heart was pounding against his rib cage, the excitement under his lungs spreading up and up and up.

He didn’t quite have the strength to keep his breathing even, but he didn’t particularly mind that. He still tried, of course, tried to seem perfectly calm and even and relaxed. A habit, left over from Corvid. He pushed his shoulders down in an effort to make them seem loose and relaxed, but they were still tense and solid, his body still a harsh, ridged board.

He tilted his head back to allow him better access, never taking his eyes off his. They were just as harsh as they had always been, but instead of sadism, or perhaps anger underneath, it was determination. He brow was furrowed, a small smile on his face.

He’d be strong again. One day.

When his fingers brushed over his skin, he nearly melted. He had to press his palms to the ground to keep himself stable. He wanted more.

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	5. Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fan arts are welcome if this ever gets that popular! Feedback as well! Enjoy!
> 
> -Loki
> 
> *this chapter is edited

Marion's eyes were focused on the task at hand, unaware of the eyes on him; brows scrunched in the faintest show of concentration. Though the task wasn't nearly as difficult as what he'd done before it still didn't come as effortlessly as his metal melding. "I'm no Jesus," he breathed finally, pulling his hand away, "But that should hold together. It's still fragile, though. This stuff is gonna take a toll on your energy level so I won't use more than necessary, yeah?"

He was already reaching for the ripped white shirt, murmuring a little in some kind of upset when he found the dried blood sticking it to Corvid's chest. Gently moving it aside, he started on the cuts there, looking up for a second. "How... how long have these-”

He winced, and nearly jerked away when the shirt was torn off him. The scars weren’t visible because of the blood covering him, and for that he was thankful. He didn’t need Marion to see the marks covering his body. Even so, he wrapped his arms around himself, one hand on either hip. “I, Uh... I started tearing at myself a week and a half after I got in here... they have to sedate me to bandage them, and I’d just tear the bandages off, anyway, so... they do what they can so it doesn’t get infected, and I don’t bleed out, but that’s about it...”

"Christ," slipped out faintly, a soft breath and a wince of something- maybe empathy? Slipping through. "Well, not anymore, I hope?" The hero's hand's were just barely skimming the surface of the torn flesh, because he didn't want to press into a stinging wound.

Marion paused, and then ventured a little further onto the un-broached topic. "I can talk to them. Explain your condition now, so they know what to expect when they come back here."

There would be a _lot_ more questions aimed in his direction, he was sure, and likely the majority of them weren't going to be overwhelmingly inquisitive as far as Corvid's immediate health and mental well-being were concerned. _One step at a time. Just one step after the other._

 _When they come back here_. Oh. Of course. He wasn’t going to get out. Not now. Of course not. He was still a sadistic villain, a monster. He was still criminally insane. Marion couldn’t get rid of that with his powers. 

He nodded a bit. “I don’t want them to be scared of me anymore.” He said as he healed the wounds. “It’s so quiet in here... it’d be nice if they talked to me. Just a bit.” He crossed his legs. “It’s so quiet. And bright. It’s really bright in here. I don’t like it.”

He nearly leaned into his arms again, but the way Marion had tensed when he’d done that the first time dissuaded him from doing it again. It had felt nice, though. To be held.

"It was driving you mad."

He bit his lip and nodded. “Not was. _Is_. It’s driving me mad. Every second in here-“ He let Marion cut him off.

Marion glanced up briefly, the crease in his brows accentuated by the aforementioned light. "But... it was before that, too," He continued, in the soft tone he'd taken on without thinking it to keep the thing that was in the air, a precious, delicate strand of _something._ "It was... all of that, all of the-" he gestured vaguely, lifted his touch off Corvid's chest and leaned forwards himself instead, carefully laying it on his arm. "Would you..."

And something in the hero's voice caught, the low tone snagged on the lump in his throat. "If I could have done this earlier, years earlier, would you have accepted it? Would you have let me take it all away from you?"

He didn’t move his arms from their place, even as Marion leaned against him. His voice had gone quiet, too, but instead of the gentle undertones that Marion gave off, his voice was fearful. Not for any reason, not because he was scared. He’d just been so scared, for so long. It was like a natural state.

He tensed when the question escaped the hero’s lips. He bowed his head over, silent as he formulated a response. “Had you taken a moment, when you raided my base, to ask about my cipher instead of just destroying it all because you couldn’t understand it, you would’ve known that all of it, every single piece, was on chromosome alteration. You would’ve seen enough work to grant me two PHDs. Love, I’ve been trying to get rid of them since day one. Since I learned how dangerous they were. If you had said you could hold my hand and take them all away, I would’ve held you prisoner until you did. I wasn’t a villain because I wanted it.”

There was a buzzing sound in the back of Marion's head- a fuzzy, distorted numbness that echoed in his skull. "I didn't know how, until a year back," He replied faintly, just the tiniest bit of voice bleeding through the whisper. His hand trailed down a cut on Corvid's arm, leaving behind only the faintest mark in its place.

But he hadn't done the _raid_ before a year ago, either. It had been two months, three weeks ago, by his count (and he HAD been counting each day, at least the ones he was lucid enough to witness). A day for his initial attack, a couple more before he'd been caught. A torturous two weeks before he'd finally broken free of the supervillain's restraints- a fourteen days of screaming pain and sleepless nights and the few moments of blessed unconsciousness he'd been granted- and then just a day longer for the fight he'd finally been able to pin his nemesis down, hand him over to the authorities for good. But before that-

"The production plant you targeted," He said blankly. "Right before my raid. They said it was likely nitrate you were after, tons of it. But there was a field trip to the plant that day and-"

His hands began to tremble again, exhaustion poking through the expression, "I got there while they were dragging the _survivors_ out, I got there in time to hold a dying kid in my arms, Corvid. I got to try to heal him only to realize he didn't have enough energy left in his body to sustain my help, I watched the _fucking life fade out of his eyes_ -"

His voice cracked for good then, some grief ridden sob that shook his shoulders as the hero himself pulled back and bunched his shoulders into himself. "A kid. Just a kid, and I was so _angry_ ," He hissed, badly suppressing a shudder. "And I swore to God I'd see you bleed. I was so _fucking pissed._ I didn't think, I didn't stop- this is my fault, too now? I'm so _fucking sorry, I-_ "

Oh. Only a year ago. But that could’ve been a year of saved time, saved lives. He pushed the thought from his mind. How could he have known what his goals were? He couldn’t have. He didn’t know.

He pulled his arm away, even as a mark on it was healed. The scars were something he could see another time. Not now. They both had enough on their plates right now. He didn’t need to drag in marks that were over a decade old.

He knew what he’d done to Marion. He knew he had grinned while he did it. He knew he had laughed, and burned him just to see the pain on his face. He wouldn’t deny that his laughter had been genuine. He didn’t know what he’d found entertaining. He didn’t fully understand his own _mind_. But during those two weeks, when there had been no one to stop him and nothing to fight, when he could take out his fury on something that would scream, and not feel bad about it, he had felt on top of the fucking world. He’d felt like a god, and he’d acted so.

He hadn’t known about the plant.

During these eight or so years of being called Corvid instead of Greyson, he had made one promise to himself

Well, he had made one promise he hadn’t broken.

Children were off limits.

He had promised himself that he would never, ever hurt a child. He promised himself that whatever else he did would slide off him like water off a duck’s back. He’d promised himself that children were off limits, and-

The one time he hadn’t checked, and he’d hurt dozens of innocent children. Children with futures and families and friends. Children who had never felt such pain before, and never would again.

It didn’t slip past him that Marion still called him Corvid.

He pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. Marion was more important than his own comfort right now. “Shush. Think about who hurt him, and who tried to save his life. Think about who had more chance of a future. Think about what the punishment normally is for killing children.” He withdrew his hand. “You had every right to be furious with me.” There were tears in his eyes now, too. “You have every right to see me suffer. Go home. We both have a lot to think about.”

“You’re still bleeding,” the hero replied automatically, cursing the quaver in his tone as he reached back out with one hand towards the other’s feet this time, “I can-”

The voice died in his throat just as quickly as it had before, at the touch to his lips, because he’d glanced up, met eyes with Corvid again, and frozen. Marion didn’t like quitting- he hated it, in fact, because up until the moment had passed when he’d run himself ragged and used every spare ounce of breath in his body, up until his muscles would no longer work with him, up until he collapsed and couldn’t get up again- up until then, the hero would never have the liberty to say he’d done everything in his power to right the tremendous wrongs. To fix and comfort and heal, because _’it’s my job, I’ve got one fucking job-’_

Marion swallowed weakly, bobbed his head in compliance. “Okay,” he managed. No one could use him when he was crumbling at the seams.

Nevertheless, he sat there a while longer, staring at the floor in silence. A few of his curls had come loose from the messy updo somewhere along the way; they hung in his face and swayed slightly as the visor suddenly came back up- the hologram flickering and forming as he shifted, pressing a hand to his knees to pull himself back to his feet.

"...I'm going to talk to them," He repeated his earlier sentiment, "Gonna tell them that-" Well, he didn't know exactly _what_ he'd say, at this point. "You're open to some medical attention. Please don't undo my hard work, yeah?"

It lilted up like a true request; he took a glance around the room, let his shoulders slump a little, and then crossed over to the overturned bedstead. He righted it, pushed it against the nearest wall, and brushed off the tough fiber that made a cot-like net stretched over the frame like some grisly alternative to a hammock. It couldn't have been much better than sleeping on the actual floor. But... anything really comfortable they could have put in here would most likely have been _flammable_ too.

He returned to the other figure, and held out his hand again, an extended offer to help him up.

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	6. A Lot to Think About

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are coming out as fast as I can convince myself to write them. My roleplay partner, Drxxmingofblue has been added as a co-creator, but they don’t use their account a ton, so go ahead and ask me any questions you have for them!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!
> 
> -Loki
> 
> *This chapter has been edited

“Yes. I’m bleeding. I can take it.” Greyson forced a calm tone. His hands were off his throat and chest, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t tearing himself into a million little pieces. 

His hands were laying limply in his lap. He could feel the effect of Marion’s healing powers already weighing down on him- like something was draining his energy straight from his body, like it was seeping from him like the blood from his body was.

All this, and Greyson had ruined Marion's life. He’d killed children. He didn’t deserve to be alive. Hell, he didn’t deserve his help. But even as they sat there, he wanted to take Marion's hair down. Run his hand through it. Just because he was there. He didn’t touch it.

He watched as the hologram mask rose back over his face, the face he hadn’t known until now. “Yeah... yeah, okay... I’ll let them fix me...” he mumbled. “Get a haircut... Gods know I need one.”

He was quiet, then. He didn’t know if he could keep from hurting himself. Greyson had killed children. Maybe he’d tear at the walls, instead. Break his nails off. Nothing he did would be enough, though. It would never be enough. 

He watched as he lifted the poor excuse for a bed from its place where he’d thrown it. Stunned. He didn’t take his hand, though. He used the wall to help himself up. Instead, he took his outstretched hand and lead him to the door. “Go. I don’t deserve your help.”

The hero's body still hesitated at where the entrance was melded into the walls, as if it wanted to stay behind. He reached up to brush lightly at the dampness still present in his cheeks, and though it was only the lower portion of his face visible, offered a tiny smile, a thing not _happy,_ per se, but not hopeless either.

"And I don't have a right to hurt you," He replied softly, raising a hand to press it against a portion of the wall and letting the scanner light up and identify him, and let the mechanics in the walls shift and start to whir, clicking the locks undone and sliding to allow exit. "But even if I did, I wouldn't," He added after a moment, stepping out and letting them slide shut behind him. He didn't expect the other to make a break for it, but he wouldn't have blamed him if he tried.

Still visible in the window, he crossed back over to the control panels, mask flickering faintly as he pressed a few more things- the lights overhead dimmed to a warm, yellow glow, the kind of light you might expect from a fireplace in a study with a lamp in some corner. He didn't bother to change anything else, turning one last look on the man locked in the cell before he started for the far exit.

As Marion unlocked the door and slipped out, Greyson managed to lower himself onto the cot. It was clear what Marion had wanted him to do, and who was he to ignore him?

He didn’t return the smile, lying on his side with his back to the glass. 

Greyson glanced up when the lights were lowered. And let out a grateful sigh. He closed his eyes. He knew that, given the chance, he would’ve taken his powers back if it meant bringing those children back. They were _children_. They were him, all those years ago. He refused to hurt them, and yet he had. He’d become what he’d never wanted to be.

_Go home,_ Corvid had said. _We both have a lot to think about._

Marion managed another faint bit of laughter as he stepped back into the surveillance room and pinged the lower floor, telling them that he was through. He hadn't been out into the foyer of the wing for two seconds before there were people flooding back in, the three nurses assigned to this cell, the doctor, the police's militia officers and a journalist or two, by the looks of it, though he was grateful for the lack of cameras. He didn't think the blood soaked into the front of his shirt was what he wanted the public to see for the time being. They were asking questions before he'd spoken a word.

It was a long few hours, after the sun had come up, before he'd explained what he could, signed the forms releasing him from the building, and waved off the insistent demands to have an escort take him back to his government provided quarters somewhere deep downtown. And when the front door to his room finally clicked shut behind him, and the mask fell away again, Marion barely had time to slip the ridiculously normal looking messenger bag off his shoulder and shrug his coat into a chair before he was collapsing onto the living-room couch with a groan muffled into decorative pillows. It took about ten seconds for him to fall asleep.

Greyson was rather overwhelmed, barely having a moment to let himself calm down. The nurses still wore gloves, still covered every inch of skin, but they weren’t as scared to touch him. The only weapon he had now was brute strength, after all. They had him sit up and hold his arms out as they cleaned the wounds to assess the damage. He was quiet, his eyes wide. They weren’t scared of him anymore. This was new. They didn’t allow him to answer any questions, though, even as he was ushered out and to the showers. He found that he felt cold, suddenly. Overwhelmingly and instantly cold. He’d naturally run a temperature of 135 degrees, and now it had lowered to 98.5. It was so, so cold.

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	7. A Donut’s a Donut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright so I have a small amount of motivation, so let’s see how many chapters I can rapid-fire edit. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this ever gets that popular! We love our boys!

The news had dubbed it 'The District Attack'. The footage of an entire warehouse (or, that's what they'd thought it was before they'd known it was Corvid's) going up in flames, the explosions and earth-shaking noises that emanated from the building churned up the water of the small harbor it stood over- it had been caught on camera by hundreds of bystanders. There was even one clip of the hero himself, rising above the smoke for a moment in a brilliant blaze of his signature blue light, the camera quality grainy and distorted before he dove back into the fray. It was being played over and over on every TV, talked on and on about on every channel and radio station and internet forum.

Euclidi and Corvid, the people near enough to be injured when it happened, the doctors and staff of the facility the villain was kept in, the officers of the city, state, and country government- were all swept into the epicenter of the fallout while the rest of the world watched. It was being called a terrorist attack, because no one knew really what had happened, who'd started the fight, where the intentions were. But what they did know was that their city hero had been held hostage for a chillingly silent stretch of time before the final fight emerged. And if Corvid's name was attached, then most certainly the fault was his, was it not?

But by some unseen decree, barely any of it was allowed past the cell walls into Greyson's earshot. They'd begun to leave the window open to two sided viewing so he could see out, leave the microphones on so they could talk both ways, so maybe chatter and idle gossip slipped through- but no one seemed willing to clue him in quite yet on any specifics. It was as if they were waiting for something, stalling. Some new faces introduced themselves- he'd been assigned the nurses, the doctors, a psychiatrist and a dour-faced ex-military warden who put emphasis on the fact that she'd been dragged out of retirement to take this case. They were still deciding whether or not they were going to let him have a lawyer.

The whole wing of the facility had been commandeered to contain the ex-villain, and it was maybe three or four days later before Marion returned. He could hear the hallways quiet as people caught sight of him and parted to let him pass; it had been happening more often as of late- ever since he'd released his first public statements to the press.

After speaking with a few people he was granted access into the back room, where he looked around to take stock of the differences. The hero was clearly visible through the glass, but he rapped on it anyway, visor up as he called through, as he gestured to the cell door- "I'm back- can I come in?"

He had known the blame would fall to him. He wasn’t surprised that it did. He was the scapegoat, after all. He was the one who took all the blame and couldn’t defend himself. To civilians, he was more of a concept than a person. The way war isn’t real until you experience it, Corvid was just something to deal with. Even to the heroes he fought, he wasn’t a person. Not really, anyway.

But something had happened when he was stuck for those two, long weeks. Marion could see the way his mind functioned just a bit more than when they were normally fighting. Like popping the hood of a car. Not all of it was understood, but it was there.

During those two weeks, Greyson had said more to him than he’d ever spoken in their entire time fighting. He hurt him more, too. He brought the hero to the brink, the very edge of death too many times to count. And too many times to count, he held his head in his lap and carded through his hair as the wounds were sewn shut.

That was probably why he lost the fight.

It had been so outlandish to him, so unthinkable that Euclidi would pull himself to his feet and fight after Greyson had torn him apart and put him back together over and over and over again. He’d left his wrists unbound, that day. He didn’t drug his meals, either.  _ He deserves a break _ . Greyson had thought.  _ Only so far you can push someone. He needs to recover _ . He thought he’d broken all the spirit from his body. He thought he’d be able to manipulate the boy like putty at that point, and although he’d thought before that Euclidi would be hard to break, it didn’t seem to be that difficult at all.

It turned out that Greyson hadn’t broken him yet.

That was probably why he lost the fight.

It was nice having someone to chat with. In four days, Greyson learned that one of the nurse’s sister was having a baby. He learned that another had just gotten married. He learned how scared they were that they would have to leave their families if Greyson killed them. It just shattered him farther. He didn’t dare touch anyone, even over clothes or gloves.

He didn’t know Marion was back until he was against the window. He looked up from his place pressed against the corner, the blanket they’d finally given him wrapped tight around his shoulders. He was so, so cold.

“You’re back.” He hadn’t expected him to come back. He thought he’d done enough, thought that he’d never come back. “I-Uh- yeah, of course. Please come in.”

A crooked smile tugged up one corner of the hero's mouth- he fiddled with the control panel for a second, and the shade of the window went black, blocking vision from either side as he stepped through the sliding doors.

"Good afternoon," Marion greeted, letting the visor disintegrate as soon as they were finished closing, and holding up the brown paper bag he'd been clutching under one hand, "I come bearing doughnuts...which is a good thing because the staff tattled on you. Said you haven't eaten yet today." The tone was jaunty, far too light for their history, but if Marion was acting then he was a damn good actor. He paused, though, faltered a second, then gestured to the blanket covering the blond, "That's new...and I see you've shaved. Must feel a hell of a lot better now, huh?"

Again, with sincere question shining in the blue eyes- so far, the hero didn't want to mention any of their previous conversations, trying his damndest to let all of it roll off his shoulders for the moment. Someone he'd loved, a long time ago, had laughed, and told him he was like a weed- that the world could roll over him like a semi-truck and he'd just pop right back up again when it was done.

Maybe that was why, months after his eyes had fluttered open, alone in some dark room, and the pain had slammed back into him- and he'd muffled the pained and trembling cries into one arm, sobbing like the broken thing he was- why he'd been able to move, after realizing he was actually lucid enough to concentrate, to think, to feel that he wasn't hanging from the wall with his hands strung together. Why he'd been able to ignore the lacerations coating his body in thick ribs of scarlet and ugly stitching, the tender rainbow of shading from the bruises and the searing hellfire from the blisters and burn-marks coating his skin and wracking his body over and over again with waves of pain. Why he'd been able to reach out, with one hand pressed flat against the concrete floor...and feel the whole building start to shake as he thought about tearing it to pieces.

Why maybe he could sit here in front of the man who'd done it all without batting an eyelash now, without thinking about what had happened after he'd been knocked to the ground, unable to regroup and focus on another attack before he'd felt a needle sliding into his arm. Or maybe it was because he couldn't remember most of what happened.

Two weeks of torture, reduced to a hallucinogenic blur in Marion's mind. How was he to distinguish between what actually happened, and his nightmares anyway?

And so Marion smiled, settling down into the single, solid steel stool in the room and set the bag down on the matching table- brows creasing again slightly as he seemed to be grasping for words for a moment. "Is the temperature in here okay for you? It doesn't seem awfully abnormal to me but I'm not-"  _ in here twenty-four seven. _ "-too picky. I can have them turn it up, maybe?"

He watched him come in, his knees tucked against his chest. He was trembling. It was so, so cold in here, and he didn’t have his powers to balance it out. To make matters worse, he was losing most of his body heat to the floor and walls. There was only so much to do, and it sucked.

“Donuts? In the afternoon? Why?” He didn’t want to take his hands out from under the blanket. Not that it mattered. It was thin, and didn’t do much.

The tone in his voice was abnormal, to say the least. The hero shouldn’t have been happy to see him. He shouldn’t even be here. He’d taken his powers away- that was more than he deserved. Hell, even coming to see him was more than he deserved. But he nodded when Marion mentioned that he’d shaved.

The hero was strong. To say the least. He was stronger than Greyson had ever been, or ever would be. Stronger than most of his men, and all of the guards and nurses attending him. This man was able to look the villain who had done monstrous things to his mind and body. And  _ smile at him _ . He didn’t deserve it, he told himself.

Greyson suddenly had a desperate desire to see the marks.

He wanted to know what he’d done to him.

Well, he knew what he’d done. He’d never be able to tear the image of Marion pinned down on a table, his body torn apart, from his mind.

But he wanted to know what had scarred. What marks were fading, and what were still there. He wanted to see his masterpiece, all fixed up and put together. He felt sick for it.

He remembered those two weeks in sickening detail. He remembered each lash over his shoulder, tearing the muscle apart. He remembered each handprint, marking who the boy belonged to. One over his heart, and two on his hips. Burned into the skin like a brand. He remembered right where he’d carved his name in like a signature. Right over his ankle, “ _ Corvid _ ,” in the prettiest handwriting he could manage with a blade.

He hated that he could sit here and smile at him, only because Greyson wouldn’t have been able to do the same to the man that had hurt him.

“You’d have to turn it up quite a bit... I ran a temperature of 135 degrees, give or take. I’m just really cold... I’ll get used to it.” He promised.

"Why? You don't have to." Marion tilted his head a little, considering the issue, "Well, I guess you'd have to eventually, unless you felt like living the rest of your life in some bunker in the desert." He chuckled a little, shook his head, "This is the stuff you should mention to your doctor, they're not getting paid to sit around, y'know? I'll mention it."

He shifted around to grab the bag, paper crinkling as he unfolded it, "Anyways, what do you mean 'it's not morning'? A doughnut's a doughnut. Seriously, jelly filled or bear-claw? I like to stick to the classics." The bag was held out to the figure on the cot, and something heavier edged into Marion's tone, smile saddening, "They'll help. It'll help, having some sugar if we're gonna do some talking, trust me.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	8. So Your Name’s Greyson

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND another one!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve felt worse than just a little cold.” He furrowed his brown at the mention of the doctor. “Tattletale.” He mumbled. “I’m fine, really. You don’t have to baby me. Hell, you don’t have to come back. You shouldn’t. You’ve done enough.” He hated that he could laugh so easily. Because that meant that he could forgive him. That he was a far better man than Greyson ever would be. And if he was faking it? He was doing it for Greyson’s benefit. He was here to help him, even after everything he’d done. He wasn’t worth that.

He was quiet for a moment when he was offered a doughnut. “I, uhm... Jelly-filled... please...” he took the bag from him, careful not to touch his skin. He was afraid of what he’d do if he did. “Isn’t that was the doctors are for...?”

"To talk to? Yeah, but a change of pace is nice, right?" the hero shrugged, pulling his wax-paper wrapped bear-claw out of the bag and leaning back, "Besides, it's not like I just replied to a newspaper ad they put out looking for a new nanny for you. I work for the state, and the state is currently in anarchy over how they're supposed to take care of the legal proceedings. I'm acting as your temporary intermediate, so you might see a bit more of me than you anticipated. Sorry," The hero mumbled around a mouthful of crusty, sugary fried dough.

He swallowed, tilting down a little as if trying to get a slightly better look at the blond's face. "Speaking of which...I read though your court files this morning...." He waited a moment to anticipate the reaction, "Do you mind if I call you by your birth name? Greyson, it was?"

He shrugged a bit, taking a bite and getting powdered sugar and jelly all over his face. He was awfully quiet, for the villain who had never seemed to shut up. “I...I thought I was done with court. They told me that this was my sentence... what are they trying to figure out?”

He just hid his face a bit more, arms wrapped around his knees, and his chin on top of them. “I thought you already knew my name... yeah, go ahead... I was a bit offended you still called me Corvid...” he laughed softly, and without humor.

Marion gave a satisfied hum. "Greyson," he confirmed, "Well, it's been swirling around the offices and such. The news. But it was like reading it for the first time, yesterday because I had all that information in one place to look at. Sorry, but I wanted to cover it with you before I started referring to you like your whole other identity."

"As for the rest...well, this  _ was _ the final sentence." Marion shrugged with a 'what're you gonna do' kind of look, "I heard they got a whole court together just to get you all squared away as fast as possible. But that was before they seized your other buildings, started catching accomplices… getting offers for you, and subpoenas." He set the food aside with a soft grimace. "I'm sure you figured already, but there are a lot of people who want you. And about ten times as many who want you dead, powerful people on both sides. That's not going to go away soon. So for all intents and purposes, yes, this is your sentence...twenty five life sentences, I believe it was, more accurately… but the boat is still rocking, so to speak."

He nodded a bit. The way he referred to the name Greyson as though he were a separate person was odd. But it made sense. To refer to him as though he were two people. The man behind the mask and the man sitting here  _ were _ two people, but Greyson saw them differently than Marion did. Greyson saw Corvid as a character. An act. Like in a play, Corvid was just a persona. He could tell that Marion saw Corvid as someone real. Someone who was more monster than man.

He was quiet when his sentence was brought up. “I- offers for me? What do you mean? I know people want me dead, but- what do they want with me? Who the hell wants me? Why haven’t I heard about this?” He’d been kept in the dark, after all. He knew about the life sentences, but that was it. The turmoil and arguments were kept out of his sight.

"You didn't know because they didn't want you trying anything," The hero sighed, "Because up until a several days ago, you still might have been able to make it out there, find sanction under one of those offers. They want your powers, Greyson. Not you. They want your status or your symbolism or your inspiration or leadership. Or...more than likely, plenty of them just wanted to personally get their hands on you so they could give you a fate worse than death or prison. But none of that matters, now."

He regarded the man with a little frown, "The public doesn't know you got rid of your abilities. Once it does, you're going to have a bigger target than ever painted on your back because people are going to start thinking they have a chance to reach you where they didn't before."

Oh, wasn’t that lovely to hear. You could’ve gotten out of here, but now you’re really stuck. It was wonderful to hear that he was an object, to everyone but Marion. Maybe to Marion, too. He was an object to be owned, a piece of power. Something that said “Look, I can control this monster of a man. Who dares to stand against me?” Or better yet, “Look, I’ve got Corvid begging for death at my feet. I’m worse than this monster of a man.” It made him feel sick.

He looked up at him. Sat up and pulled the blanket off his shoulders. “I can take your powers away, using mine.” He repeated. “And they wouldn’t call you a threat anymore. You wouldn’t be hunted, you wouldn’t have a target on your back.” The look in his eyes was harsh. “That’s what you told me. You said I’d be safe. You said it would be over.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	9. Like a Frog in a Science Class

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I edited a chapter purely because I wanted to add this note. Just to clear things up, I (Loki) am editing the chapters and leaving the notes. Blue is added as a collaborator for posterity. 
> 
> Side-note: This chapter wasn’t discussed beforehand. They really just tore Greyson apart like that, and I am forever amazed by it.
> 
> I genuinely cry when I edit the chapters or read over what’s written. These boys are just too sad for me!
> 
> Also, I’ve just realized that we have a whole 164 pages of written material that I just need to edit and post. And shit goes down, guys. You don’t even know who Bryant Luther is yet. Shit. Goes. Down.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough! (I just wanna see someone draw these boys)
> 
> ENJOY!

Oh, this extended beyond U.S borders? There were people on the other side of the world who wanted their hands on him, or his body? That wasn’t comforting. That wasn’t comforting at all. He was unable to break out, sure, but that didn’t mean others couldn’t break in.

He leaned forward, one hand in his hair, the other against his chest, nails digging into his skin. “Let them have me.” He whispered. “Blindfold me and cuff me and send me to Russia. Let them torture me, I don’t care. You’ve already done so much for me, Euclidi... I don’t deserve any more help from you. Just... I want to see the sky. Just one more time.”

The hero's hands were gripping the side of his chair lightly; he let out a soft huff of breath and left it, the furniture scraping back as he knelt down besides the other figure. There was an odd, soft smile on his face, "The paperwork is signed and stamped. I had to wait three hours in a court lobby to get it done. I will absolutely not send you to Russia."

He paused, voice dipping slightly. "Not when there's an apartment upstate for sale somewhere waiting for you to come home. Remember? There are permits for that, down the road. Not when there's someone out there living their life,  _ dreaming _ about the day they find a lover like the person you're going to become."

He held out a hand- glove on- in Greyson's line of sight- not touching him yet, just waiting to see if he was willing. He'd noticed the avoidance earlier. "Things will  _ change _ . They'll get better. You can't be giving up on me yet- you have to be willing to change and be better too. So that you'll be ready when the time comes to see the sky again."

There were tears on his cheeks, his eyes wide and red and raw. He flinched back, just a bit, when Marion knelt in front of him. His intermediate. Marion had gone through the effort just so he could be involved in what happened to Greyson.

He let out a quiet cry when all his hopes and dreams and wants were repeated back to him. The apartment upstate, the lover who saw passed his past. And the way he said it... like he knew it was going to happen. Like he could see the future, and that was in it.

He knew what Marion wanted him to be. But changing took effort, and effort took energy, and energy was something he was fresh out of. He looked up at his hand.

Changing. Being someone other than Corvid.

Becoming more man than monster, forgetting about Corvid.

Maybe he could do that. If he really tried. If he let Marion help him.

But changing wasn’t erasing.

He couldn’t take the handprints off his chest or hips. He couldn’t undo the name carved into his ankle. He couldn’t change what he’d done, and the man in front of him was living proof of that. Marion was a better man than he would ever be, purely because Greyson would never forgive himself. Not the way Marion had forgiven him. He dropped his hands and sat up. “...Go. I don’t deserve your help.” He whispered. “I don’t deserve an apartment upstate or a lover. I don’t deserve a chance.”

"You keep saying that. Don't think I haven't been keeping track."

Marion shifted, pulled back his hand to give the man a foot or two of space and settle himself cross-legged on the floor. "Around five counts, I figure. Eight and a half with the variations. The thing is, Greyson, you already  _ took _ a chance."

He tapped the floor lightly with one finger, "You were forced to a full stop in here. And it made you think about the magnitude of all of this. You acknowledged that all these things inside you, the fear, the rage and the desire to hurt because hurt was all you knew- that they'd all overwhelmed you for  _ so long _ and that they'd lead you into doing things that you could never take back, lead you to a place I will never ever believe you saw or wanted yourself to be when you were, say… an eight year old kid. And you finally woke up and realized that they'd been leading you to a dead end, all along.

Because what were you gonna do if you actually succeeded? Drink the potion and then blow your own brains out? Escape to another country under a different name with every single fucking memory dragging you down and every fear that  _ someone _ was gonna track you down someday? Did you think that once you were free of those powers you'd be free of everything else?"

Marion sat back. "No. I don't think you were fooled by any of that for a second, at least not deep down. You just didn't know what else to do, if there was a way out now, and you still had your anger and no one to sympathize with you, and you were glad to settle with thinking that you could at least  _ make _ other people feel your pain too, one way or another.

"You weren't fooled by it. I know you weren't. Because when I stepped into this room for the first time and held out my hand you saw for once a way out of your little self-formed cul-de-sac, and you grabbed it and clung the fuck on and you  _ took my hand _ and that means three things to me, Greyson. Number one, you were apologizing to me. And number two, you haven't been totally consumed by the bad things in you. You went through all this shit for twenty three fucking years, and you still have the capacity to be more than that and you've had it all along.

"The last thing it means to me, is that you really, really,  _ really _ don't  _ actually _ want to die. You were terrified of me when I came in because you thought I was gonna barge into the room and rip out your windpipe or something. And then when I'd barely mentioned a chance I could take this away, you were on your knees because it had been so much, and you'd been weighted down for so long. And you let me come in, and there wasn't fear in your eyes anymore. You leaned into it because you knew it could save you."

He pulled the blanket around himself and leaned back into the corner once he’d backed away. His calm unnerved him.  _ How can you stay so perfect, even in here? _ he thought. How can you stay the perfect model hero, even after everything? When do you let yourself break?

Took a chance? He didn’t take a chance. He’d been stuck in here. There hadn’t been a chance. Hadn’t been a single opportunity to pull himself out of here.

And then Marion dissected him into a million parts. Like a frog in a science class, he dissected his mind and got to the source of what made him tick. He pulled out everything he’d been repressing and hiding (mostly from himself) and laid it out in front of them like cards. He forced Greyson to see just what he was made of, just where his pain was coming from. It wasn’t his powers. Not mainly, at least.

It was Greyson himself.

He was the reason.

Or rather, what he’d become.

He knew that getting rid of the powers wouldn’t fix everything, but he hadn’t come up with a plan for after that. He’d assumed he’d just run off to Europe somewhere, but Marion was right. He’d always be terrified of himself, of getting dragged back into the life he never wanted.

Greyson had hurt people, and he had enjoyed doing it. He wouldn’t deny that. But he had denied the reasoning behind it. He thought that it was because he was a villain, thought that he was finally accepting who he had to be to make a place for himself in the world.

It wasn’t that at all. He’d wanted others to feel his pain. His subconscious had thought that he’d never be able to make someone hurt more than he did, so he spread it out. Gave some people the death he didn’t quite want for himself, and let others live on in pain. He never thought he’d make someone hurt as much as he did.

He was almost right with that.

It was arguable, how much he’d hurt Marion, but it was bad. Worse than he’d hurt anyone before, and that was because Marion had hurt him, in ways he didn’t understand and ways that he did. He wanted to tear him apart.

And so he did.

He wasn’t aware that his actions had meant so much to him. He wasn’t aware that Marion could see straight through them, see all the motives behind everything he did, whether he knew them himself or not.

Greyson had let the blanket fall off his shoulders. He didn’t think he’d ever cried this hard, one hand over his mouth to muffle the sobs.

He pulled himself off of the cot, sinking to his knees across from him. And then he leaped onto his chest.

He pinned him down, a hand on his throat. He didn’t actually press down hard. There wasn’t any malice in his eyes. “I hate you.” He whispered, his tears falling onto Marion’s cheeks. “I hate you, so, so much.” He released his grip, instead collapsing into his arms. “Just... shut up. Stop it. Just stop...” his shoulders bounced harshly with each hiccup, each sob into his shirt.

“I don’t wanna die. I want your help, I just... I don’t want to be your priority. I want you to help yourself before you help me, because I know... I hurt you... more than I should have...”

The hero's eyes widened, but this time he didn't flinch. His back hit the floor with a soft thud and a slight wheeze, and he stared up at the blond until Greyson was crying against the muted, dove blue shirt.

He turned his head to the side and laughed, chest rumbling beneath Greyson's head, "You know something we have in common? Neither of us asked for this life. Those powers. But here we are. They came along anyway and raised hell to boot."

His hand touched Greyson's back and began to rub it in circles, and he glanced back at the blond, the whisper almost tender in its simple venerability. "This world is packed chock fucking full of things that are  _ so _ much bigger than us. That's the earth we've inherited; that's our lot. And I'm talking about everybody. So many things that are so, so big we could never hope to face them and win. You were trying anyway, because you didn't have anyone. You were alone. Well, here I am. You think I'm doing you a favor? My powers used to eat away at me. I'd be afraid, because I knew I could just touch something and every single molecule holding it together would just...rip apart."

He paused, throat bobbing and voice pitching into something ragged. "I was afraid that my bed, the floor, the earth itself would disintegrate underneath my touch, so it  _ did _ . And I was afraid that my family--" he broke off, looking back at Greyson with watering eyes. His hand had clenched into the blond's shirt without realizing it. "I was so fucking scared. But my mom wasn't. She came to me every time I was falling apart and she held me, and told me it couldn't get her. She was there every time I came back from seeing nothing but fucking electrons buzzing around inside my own head like they wanted to kill me and remind me that she was there and she was warm and she could hold me and I believed her because I had to to survive. Because what would I do without them?"

His breath hitched faintly; Marion wasn't full-on crying, but it looked like he was on the verge, and smiling through it at the other man. "But you didn't have that, did you? Greyson? You didn't have anyone to put you back together like I did even though we were the same and I really just think that was the part you didn't deserve. You deserved what I had because you were a scared little kid, because it's a basic fucking right and that means it can't ever change. You  _ still _ deserve to be touched and to know it's going to be okay. I have that. You don't. So don't worry about what you did to me because even when my body was on fire and I couldn't think about anything else, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. It didn't matter what you did to me."

He sniffled slightly, laughed a wobbly laugh that was  _ joyful. _ "Oh, it'll take me forever to heal. But I know I'll be healing. These things are so, so much bigger than me, and my life is bursting at the seams with them. And everyone has a soul that's bursting to escape their bodies, because we're all so much bigger than them, and that means we're all so incredible. And so beautiful, just because we're here. Isn't that great?! I'm so scarred and so beautiful."

He dropped back down to a reverent whisper. "So are you. Please believe I saw it because it was there all along. So are you. You deserve a lover and a house, and some kids who are gonna think you're their hero."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

  
  



	10. Actually Touching

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m updating slowly to protect you from the horrors.
> 
> Like, seriously, I legit cry when I read over the doc we have. 
> 
> Every.  
> Single.  
> Time.
> 
> But I’m hurting my boys for your enjoyment so you guys better appreciate it.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough for that,  
> ENJOY

Greyson pressed closed his eyes and listened to him speak, his forehead pressed against his chest, and his shirt balled up in his fists. Feeling his voice more than hearing it. He took shaky, slow breaths in an attempt to calm himself, but really couldn’t stop the hiccups.

The feeling of his hands through the coarse white fabric was odd. It shouldn’t have been- nothing about this situation should’ve felt odd, but he was Corvid, the man with death dripping from his fingers, and so it did.

He pressed his forehead to his chest, his whole body up against his, every part of them that could be touching connected. He breathed in his scent, felt his breathing and his heartbeat and his voice. He knew that there was a handprint, over that heartbeat. His handprint. But there was a  _ heartbeat _ . Proof that he hadn’t given up yet. And if Marion hadn’t, why should Greyson?

He listened, and he realized that Marion had broken before. That he’d been just as bad as Greyson, just as out of control and scared. Marion had fixed it. Sure, he’d had help, but he’d fixed himself. And now Greyson had help, didn’t he? And sure, it would take some time, and an awful lot of help, but Marion was there, and willing.

He listened to him speak of his scars, and laugh. Laugh at how long they would take to heal. And it occurred to Greyson that he didn’t see the scars as something bad. He saw them as proof of his strength, of the beauty of humanity. He didn’t see the scars the way Greyson saw his. Greyson wanted to learn to see the world the same way he did.

He reached up and pressed a finger to his lips. “Shh. As much as I love the sound of you speaking, as beautiful as the way you see the world is... just... Shh. No more of that. No more talk of this. I’ve got you right here, right where I want you, not trying to get yourself killed for my sake. Let me gather myself. Shh.”

The body underneath him didn't so much shift as it did hum- full of energy and life even as the man blinked once or twice. "Oh."

He pulled his other hand up, and wrapped both of them around the waist, finding a spot in the small of Greyson's back where they could both sit snugly secure against him. "...Okay."

He took the moment to realize how acutely heavy the silence rang when there was nothing smothering it but the occasional shift and the sounds of breathing. He made it a full two minutes before adding, tentatively, "I'm not sure if you've noticed but we're, like… genuinely. Actually  _ touching _ right now."

“Shh. It hasn’t hit me yet. Quiet.” He actually, fully relaxed against him. Let his shoulders unknot and fall apart, for the first time in about two months. Probably longer. He buried his head in the crook of his neck, taking a deep breath.

He listened to his heart beat for a full five minutes. Felt his head rise and fall with his breathing. It felt nice. Better than anything he’d ever felt before. Just to be held, and close.

“I want to see the marks.” He whispered.

“I’m scared you’re going to hate me if I ask, but... I wanna see…”

"Kay, just making sure."

_ Marion, shut the fuck up. _

The human rested his chin onto the head of blond hair, eyes fluttering shut as he went on standby. God, he did love a good hug.

He did stir, though, opening his eyes to stare at the ceiling again with a faint look of confusion, because he knew that there were marks practically everywhere. "Which ones?"

“The handprints. Just the one on your chest is okay. And the one on your ankle.” He didn’t look up. He hated that there were enough marks for him to have to ask that.

"Oh… those ones."

And then it was quiet for a long time. Marion's jaw tightened and his eyes trained onto something distantly beyond the spotless metal above him, and his hands slid until they lay limply in the small of Greyson's back.

Marion sat up slowly, propping himself up onto one elbow and then straightening, and he slowly took the shoulders of the blond. "Look at me."

He waited for a second, then continued, "Those are still fresh for me, Grey. And they will be for a  _ very _ long time. As long as you respect that, you can see them. Do you understand me?"

He clutched his shirt, and for a moment was terrified he’d gone too far. He hid his face in his shoulder and tried not to cry. But Marion didn’t take his hands off him, didn’t shove him away...

He sat up with him, pushing himself off his chest and sitting between his legs, on his knees. He flinched when his hands gripped his shoulders, but he didn’t dare tear his eyes away.

His lips trembled at his words. Of course they were, of course he hadn’t just forgotten. He didn’t know what part of him had expected him to. But he nodded furiously. “No touching. Got it.”

"Good." Marion's lips gave a tiny quirk upwards, a half smile that took a second to reach his eyes. "Don't look so petrified; it's okay."

His hands let go...hovered for a moment, and then went to the slim buttons of his shirt. A few stray curls fell loose into his eyes as he deftly unbuttoned the smokey blue fabric, and he started to pull it aside for a second before he reconsidered and forewent that in favor of just letting the whole thing slide off him.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	11. What They Look Like Scarred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a ton of messages from someone who fell in love with my boys as much as I did, and... well, you can see where that went. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> Trust me, this is mild. Winter is coming.
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

It was Marion's turn to keep his eyes averted; he carefully grabbed the shirt and half folded it, setting it aside neatly before returning his hands to the ground, all with his head turned to the side.

Greyson didn’t smile. He didn’t meet his eyes. He didn’t answer. He was scared, very scared. Scared that he’d hate him, that he’d go and never come back and leave him here.

His eyes traced down his body, even before his shirt was off. He watched his hands move, watched him unbutton and then decide against it and pull it off.

The marks, oh gods, the marks. Those were all from him. Or most of them. The handprints weren’t even the worst- he thought they would be. He turned and closed his eyes, a hand over his mouth. He felt sick. He felt so, so sick.

It was a snake's nest; a spiderweb. A chaotic mess of lines and patches of still reddened skin and just barely visible bruises overlapping each other in a way that denoted the work of something maddened. Someone maddened. And yet; methodical, because at the center of the maelstrom was the handprint, and there wasn't anything overlapping it. It was left unbroken, a clean testament of what had happened darkening his chest. It all wrapped around his body- lashing curling over to his back and lining up over onto his arms; making gruesome snarls over his shoulders and across his collarbone.

Everything looked healed over in a way that couldn't have been humanly possible for two months, though. None of the whipping marks were raised or raw anymore, most of the cuts were free of stitching and what was there was neat and small and professional. He'd been taken care of well, at the hospital. The hair on his chest was barely growing back, a thin line of fuzz making a trail down his stomach to the hem of his soft gray jeans.

There was light flickering in Marion's face. His mask glitched for a millisecond, hesitant and unsure before it covered his face, and the man in turn shifted, shaking his head and making it disappear like it was an an unwanted mosquito buzzing around his head. He glanced back to the other figure, hands curling into loosely clenched fists against the floor. "Here it is. If you looked longer you might find a place we could play tic-tac-toe, yeah?"

He held both hands tight over his mouth, leaning down so his forehead was almost pressed against the floor. He wanted to vomit. He’d only caught a glimpse of the scars, and he wanted to puke.

He knew what they’d looked like bloodied, when you couldn’t see how bad the damage was, and he knew what they looked like bandaged, when he was wrapped in a shirt of cotton wraps and gauze. He hadn’t known what they’d looked like scarred.

He’d never be able to tear the image from his mind.

He wanted to look again. He wanted to reach out and touch his skin. He wanted to pin him down and trace over each mark with his fingers, and then with a blade. He didn’t do any of that.

“How can you joke...?” He whispered. “How can you possibly... How didn’t you kill me? How did you let me do that...?”

He knew how powerful Marion was. He knew that he couldn’t stand a chance, even with his powers.

“How did I let myself do that?”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	12. A God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There’s drama in the next chapter, which is also my favorite scene. I sorta wish I could rewrite it.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> Enjoy!

"You did it because there were things in your head."

Marion leaned back a little more, and then he shifted around and folded up his leg, starting to unbuckle the boot straps. "And there probably still are, that's just something to work on. I let you because I was drugged out of ninety-nine percent of my brain functions, and because I had time in there to figure out what my rage filled passion was doing to everyone. And humor's a pretty normal coping mechanism."

The blunt honesty was off-set by the tone; it was low, and careful, like he was trying not to let his voice out of a tight reign of control. He only pulled his foot halfway out of the boot, his sock sitting just below where Corvid's name was etched, deep and deliberate.

He didn’t want to look up. He didn’t want to see marks, but he’d asked to...

He waited until the nausea had died down, deciding to fold his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t be compelled to touch them. He did his best to keep his breath even, and instead of looking at the marks, he met his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve really said that out loud, instead of in some secret handshake language I didn’t know I was speaking. I’m really sorry, Euclidi..”

The look that met his gaze was a desolate kind of distance; Marion's eyes were brimming again and his lower lip was clenched in between his teeth until he could gather enough of himself to whisper, faintly, "Are you? Then say it again."

“I’m sorry, Euclidi.” He repeated. “I’m sorry I’m not the man I want to be. I’m sorry I found pleasure in your pain. I’m sorry I didn’t stop when I knew I should have. I’m sorry, Euclidi. I’m sorry you’ll never be able to forget my face or the feeling of my hands. I’m so, so sorry...” he said all of this with his eyes meeting his, even as tears poured down his cheeks, wetting the synthetic cloth. “You are a better man than I will ever be. I’m sorry. And thank you.”

Somewhere along the way, the hero's body had started shaking. He trembled like a stray kitten in an alleyway; like there was something he was starving for.

His head sagged, his whisper barely audible. "My name is Marion. I am Marion, and I don't want to forget the feeling of your hands on me."

He was mute as he pulled his knees to his chest, and as the tears spilled over, and he was silent as he buried his head in his hands, and then he gave a deep shudder, and began to sob brokenly.

Greyson bit down hard on his lip. Only one of them needed to be crying right now. Marion need his help. He needed someone’s help, at least. He gently lifted his shirt from where it’d been thrown. “Here...” he mumbled.

“Okay. Marion. Marion... I like that name. Marion.” He repeated it a few times, feeling the name on his tongue, his lips. It felt odd, applying the name to someone he’d always known as a faceless hero.

“Perhaps you should go... I’m not the best person to help you right now...” he held his hands to his chest. He didn’t like seeing him cry. Not anymore, at least.

When he felt the fabric brushing against his arm Marion took it without looking up. He pulled in a few deep gasps, and used it to blot his tears, and burst into bitter laughter, tipping back to the floor with one arm thrown across his eyes. "Agh, sorry, I look like a mess," he chuckled out, "I can stop whenever I want. Don't worry."

The hero sucked in a few more breaths, stabilizing the erratic pattern, and then sat back up, starting to pull his shirt back on. "You can just tell me if I'm making you uncomfortable, Greyson. I'm really not trying to ruin this space for you," he added, sniffing quietly.

His brow furrowed at how easily he stopped crying. Greyson couldn’t do that. He wished he could, but he really couldn’t. He withdrew his hands, his eyes falling back to the marks.

“I don’t think you can make in any worse in here. Marion. You’ve already made it a thousand times better. You’re the best thing I’ve got.”

He held a hand out for him. “Are you okay...? Did I overstep?”

Marion pulled the shirt over his shoulders, brushing it off slightly and glancing up at the blond, "You say my name like it's a prayer. It's okay, Grey," and he reached out to clasp their hands together, "Really. Glad you like it. It's Italian, I've got the blood in me."

Spine straightening, he appeared to be holding something back; biting his lip, shifting, then he laughed again, brighter this time and with an air of amusement, "I'm sorry, I'm all over the place but...I just noticed. You still have some doughnut powder on your face." Quick as wink, he leaned over and swiped at the man's cheek, "There. I'm okay, I promise."

“It suits you. Marion. Sounds like... a fantasy protagonist. Farm boy to fame. Like Eragon. Marion. Wait, no, Eragon is a dumbass. But you get what I mean. Right?” He tripped over his words, just thankful he didn’t hate him.

This time, when he laughed, Greyson chuckled too, even though he wasn’t quite sure what he was laughing about. He flinched back in surprise when he brushed the powder of his cheek, before breaking out in giggles. “Gods, how are you so perfect?”

"That's a rhetorical question; the one we should really be asking is why it took you so long to notice." Marion shifted to a looser posture, resting his elbows on his knees with that same lopsided grin, "Really though, don't call me perfect. I'd hate to disappoint you further on down the road, Grey, the two of us are still both human and I've been saying it this whole time."

He paused, then added, thoughtfully, "But that first bit sounds right....you literature nerd. I did grow up on a farm. Lucky guess? Or did I miss some mind reading power of yours?"

“You’re better than any other hero I’ve met, so you’re pretty perfect in my book.” He crossed his legs, his hair falling in his face. He didn’t seem to mind. “You seem, to me, like a whole different category. If I’m human, then you’re like... a god. I don’t know.”

“Lucky guess. You should read Eragon. He’s a dumbass and it’s hilarious.” He tilted his head. “If I could read your mind, this would be a much different conversation.”

“Oh, it would be. You have no idea," Marion snorted, rolling his eyes to give the ceiling an exasperated smile. "I guess the rest of your gods must fart in the bathtub and forget to seperate the whites doing laundry too, then? I'm not gonna be your paragon of humanity, or anyone else's. But I'll add Eragon to the list. What other heroes have you met? I might know some of them.”

“I like you, Marion. Really, really, really like you. ‘Kay? Now can you shut up about it?” He let his eyes as he said that. “It’s enough that you’re here at all. It’s incredible that you’re not breaking down in front of me, because I know that if there was another man in your place, I would be a disaster. So yeah, you’re pretty much a god in my eyes. Okay?”

The hero threw up his hands in mock surrender, "Alright, okay, you're glad I didn't kill you.  _ Very _ understandable. Just don't act like I didn't warn you."

He re-buckled his boot and stood, brushing himself off with a shake of his head and a laugh, extending his hand to help Greyson up too. "It's your choice. But if you're gonna do that, you know how you can worship me? Finish your doughnut and talk to your fucking doctor. Take care of yourself."

He took his hand, standing up. “It’s not just that... Nevermind. Thank you, Marion.” He sat back down on the cot, taking another bite of his doughnut.

“Can’t make me talk to them. Overpaid assholes who really don’t care.” He mumbled. “What do you want me to do? What can I do in here?”

"That's...actually a very good question," Marion sobered up a little, casting a thoughtful glance towards the door. "They really did just clean up in here and give you a blanket, huh? No wonder you don't trust them. As of when I became your intermediate, the objective changed, though. They're supposed to be here to help you, not just contain you, Greyson. As long as you have an interest in expanding your world beyond this," And he gestured to the room, "We're being 'overpaid' to accommodate for that. But, if there is anyone here really taking advantage of the fact you can't fight them, you should let me know."

He leaned forwards though, "But for right now? Wouldn't you like something to do all day? And maybe an actual bed? I can get those. God knows what being in here all day with nothing would do to you if it kept up like this, Grey."

“I picked the room up. They only gave me the blanket because I was freezing in the corner and I asked for one.” He went to grab the blanket back. “I don’t really trust anyone, if you can’t tell.”

“I don’t... I feel like you’re doing too much, and I know you’re sick of hearing that from me, but you should be out being a hero. Not in here with some washed-up villain...”

“You saw what it would do to me. It was two and a half months without anything to do or anyone to talk to. The only reason why I haven’t torn myself apart again is because you’re here. Please, get me something to do.”

The hero gave a sympathetic half smile at the request but left it at that, putting the rest of his food back away and starting to roll it up as he prepared to go. "I do more than just fight and patrol," Marion hummed lightly. "...my job starts the minute I wake up, and it doesn't end until I'm out for the night. If there's something I can do to help this city I can't just turn my back on it, Grey. I can't. And...well, to be completely honest, I know how smart you are."

He smiled a little, "It's not like I'm asking you to do anything yet, or ever really, but all that time, all those years you spent...I had no idea how far your research had gotten. But to run the operation you did, it takes a hell of a lot more than brute strength or speed or the ability to turn metal into dust. I think you could do incredible things, somewhere, for someone. If you wanted."

Marion pushed the rebellious curls back up out of his face and gave a quick wink and a grin, "Just something to think about until I get back. I'll see you soon, okay?"

He watched him, his brow furrowed and his knees pulled against his chest, bouncing a bit on the cot. And he listened. He listened to him speak of being a hero, and all he could think was  _ He’s so _ good, _ it isn’t fair _ .

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	13. Who Said What

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is one of my favorite scenes (or half of it, at least.) There’s something in the next chapter that Grey wouldn’t have done at all, but oh well. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough for them!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He listened to him speak about the project, and he almost punched him in the chest. The project... he’d tried his best not to think about it. He knew what had happened to his research, and he was more than mad about it.

“I only slept about three nights a week.” He murmured finally. “Every spare moment of my time was work. That’s how I got so far in eight years. I... burned out a lot. I took horrible care of myself. I didn’t care, I just wanted them gone. And then you destroyed it all, and... in that moment, I wanted you to kill me, Marion. More than anything. I didn’t want to wait for a trial or a sentence. I wanted to die right then and there.” He leaned forward. “What I was doing was an attempt to alter human DNA, tear each cell apart at the seams and take out what I didn’t want. What I could’ve done with that kind of stuff, what I planned to do with it once I was done, was... heroic, if you’d like to call it that. It’s gone now, though.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

Marion had stopped with his hand halfway raised to the scanner, silent and frozen and with the paper bag crinkling faintly as his other one curled into a fist around it. It was like a fever dream, the memories he had, but Greyson's words brought back the feel of something distinct. The sight of a blurred, white lab, all stainless steel tables and people in lab coats with faces he couldn't focus on. All crashing glass and twisting metal, paper flying into destruction, screaming, gunshots, and the taste of blood and fury simmering on the back of his tongue. He didn't want to think about it either, really. It might jolt his memory too well.

And suddenly he wanted to apologize. He didn't want to leave like this- didn't want to leave the sour note hanging in the air like last time. He wanted to say that he was trying to understand. That he was trying, so hard to clamp back down on the anger that struggled to escape from the shackles he'd put it under, and he wanted to lie to himself and say that there wasn't a throbbing in the spot over his chest, where his heart began to beat faster with the force of unwanted recollection laying it down and-

Marion paused. Went rigid, a little, and turned back around. "That's not what they told me. They said you were trying to  _ eradicate _ superhumans."

“Eradicate... no. Hell no. I’m all for people who’ve got powers like-like yours, and who do good things with them. I wanted mine gone, and then I would’ve given my research to-to cancer doctors, or some shit. Run off to Europe and learn Italian and be a professor in Rome. Watch what my research does from afar. I didn’t want to  _ eradicate _ superhumans all together...”

He ran a hand through his hair. “I could’ve targeted a tumor and turn every cell into stem cells. I could’ve taken a ball of meat and turned every cell into a human heart that would never be rejected because it matches perfectly. I could’ve changed the world, with what I had. That’s why I did it, because I wanted the last act of Corvid’s to be a hero’s act.”

“And I wanted to be caught one day. I wanted to come back, in like, my 70’s, and say. ‘My name is Greyson Nicholas Calva. For eight years, I was known as Corvid. Arrest me.’ I wanted to go to court and say, ‘I know what I have done, and I am here to pay for it. But before you give me my sentence, know what I have done for the world. Know who I am.’ I would’ve plead guilty to all of it and solved about a dozen unsolved murder cases. I would’ve died with a smile on my face. It’s all gone now, and I’m terrified.”

_ It’s gone now, though. _

_ It's gone, now. _

"Your research isn't  _ gone _ ," Marion replied, after floundering for a second in bewilderment. Greyson's plan, his goal of a happily ever after (if you could call inadvertent suicide-by-trial that) was wrong, it was all wrong and it didn't make  _ sense _ . "I attacked you. Just you, when I busted in and I was going for you until I was caught, and after that when I was beaten and drugged and who knows what the fuck else you did to me- I tried to get out and destroy anything that looked important. I didn't exactly have a game plan at that point. They salvaged what they could, seized all your things from the college...that's  _ not what they told me. _ "

He had fully turned from the door, troubled enough to forget that he'd been ready to leave a moment before. "The police found test results. They found log books, hard drives- they went over  _ everything _ they got in the raid. You weren't trying to fix anything. You were trying to make things- viruses, poisons, traps- that would  _ kill us. _ Like some kind of fucking rodent extermination. You were trying to target the mutated cells, and degrade them back into stunted versions of themselves. It would have taken your powers away but then it would have gone further than that, that's what our research team  _ said you were doing!” _

Somewhere along the way Marion's voice had begun to tremble. A glow like angered flint rose to the surface of his irises; he gave a tiny start and glanced down as the paper bag in his white-knuckled grip glitched, morphed, and then turned into dust- just fell away as if it had never existed. He took in a deep breath and reigned in his powers. "I don't understand why you would lie to me," He continued softly, "When you've already hurt so many people. You were going to go live a peaceful, Disney princess life somewhere our laws couldn't touch you while everyone who lost a loved one lived their lives out thinking you'd never be brought to justice for what you'd done. What's a genocide on top of that? Why didn't you just kill me too? I'm sure you experiments could have used a body like mine."

His eyes were wide, his mouth open. Not in shock or surprise or happiness. In  _ fear _ . Fear pressed behind his eyed like a hundred-pound weight, so hard it almost hurt. He hadn’t been this scared since he was little, and it seemed that he’d been scared a lot lately. He’d seen what the man before him could do, the man before him who was absolutely furious. He didn’t want to be on the other end of that rage, that was for sure.

He’d pushed himself against the wall, staring at him in fear. Sure, a tiny part under his lungs pulsed in excitement that his work was still intact, still usable, but the fear was what held his attention.

He flinched back as the bag disintegrated like a scolded child. Marion thought he was lying- of course he did. Greyson hadn’t given him any reason to trust him, and he didn’t know how to convince him.

“You hate me.” Was all he could whisper. “You hate me, don’t you? You’ll never come back...” No. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this alone.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	14. I Don’t Hate You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hehehehehehehe
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

A few ticks of silence. The hero stared at him, dumbfounded, until the shock finally shook itself free.  _ "What?!" _

Marion looked like he'd been struck; he looked like the world was crumbling from beneath his feet all over again. His voice was tight and controlled, but it was like a monster on the end of a leash, slowly breaking free. "Are you fucking kidding me? That's all you care about, after all of this?! This has always been about you. Hasn't it? Just about you, this whole time and here I thought you were actually  _ sorry _ . That you actually wanted my help. That the lives of all those people actually meant more to you than just a kick on your conscience. I don't hate you, Corvid! I hate what you did,  _ everything _ you represented. I hate what you put us all through while you had your god damn pity party and plotted to kill my friends off like they were cockroaches."

His voice broke; Marion wasn't sure why he'd taken a step forwards, the intensity in his eyes rising to some fever pitch that spilled over into tears that glowed a bioluminescent blue. "I hate that you took over my  _ life _ ! I was going to college too, did you know that?! I was gonna be a therapist. I was gonna spend my time talking to people who actually wanted my help, who actually fucking appreciated what I was doing for them! I hate that the second they found out what I was capable of and sat me down and told me that I was the only person who could stop you, I  _ knew _ that I had to leave everything behind, all my friends, all my dreams, to become somebody's weapon because there were already too many dead. I hated how they laughed when I told them I wanted to talk to you, how they made me want more than anything just to catch you so we could  _ talk _ instead of just murdering you where you stood from the start to save so many people, so many."

His throat caught a sob, "And I hate that there's blood on my hands now. I hate how much this fucked both of us over. I hate how I could hold a thirteen year old boy in my arms, lay his body down, and see red and forget everything I've ever been taught about forgiveness. I hate that you broke me so much that I was relieved when I thought they'd kill you. I hate how angry I still am at you, and I said I wasn't because you didn't need to hear that, and I didn't want it to be true. It wasn't supposed to be this way! I'm not supposed to be so selfish!"

He wiped away his own tears, hands shaking with the effort to stop the walls themselves from shaking. "Because this isn't about me, Corvid, and it isn't about you. This is so much bigger, and someone has to clean it all up so I'm going to  _ leave _ and try to figure out what the hell is going on because it's the least I can do for all the lives I've ruined. And you can stay here and do fuck all, unless you actually have the tiniest iota of a desire to make up for any of this in which case you can  _ talk. To your fucking. Doctor. _ "

He knew it was cold, cruel. He knew it was a self righteous soapbox lecture fueled by anger and impulse and he knew Greyson probably hadn't bothered to listen to even half of it. He knew he was destroying any semblance of trust he might have managed to glean from the man, but something in him felt like it had finally snapped. And he was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he actually would kill the man. So much for being basically a god.

"And know that I'm so sorry. Please just know that I'm so fucking sorry," He whispered, even as he turned away to press his palm to the scanner, and open the doors up.

He stared at him with wide eyes as he spoke. With fear, then anger, then horrible, horrible guilt. He wished he’d been killed. He wished he’d been killed so he didn’t have to listen to what he had done.

He’d ruined Marion’s life. He didn’t think it had really hit him until now. He’d ruined Marion’s life.

And then Marion turned to go, and didn’t give Greyson any chance to defend himself. And fury rose from the soles of his feet, into his ankles, his thighs. Anger came up his stomach and into his chest. Up his throat and drowned his mind. He stood up slowly.

Greyson rushed forward and slammed his palm into his chest.

“Don’t you  _ dare _ think you know both sides of the story.” He whispered. “Don’t you  _ dare  _ think that your government is perfect. Don’t you  _ dare _ think I was trying to eradicate supers.” His face was inches from his, eyes meeting. “Don’t you  _ dare  _ accuse me of lying when you haven’t read the goddamn research yourself.” He pushed himself off his chest.

“You say I’m lying, yeah? You say I was making weapons? You want to know why they told you that, hm?”

“Those bastards can’t read a goddamn thing. Every piece of my work was encrypted, and I guarantee you it hasn’t been solved. I  _ know _ it hasn’t been solved.”

“And you have every right to blame me, and be furious. You have every right to hate me and never come back, but don’t. You. Dare. Think you know what I was doing. Don’t you  _ dare  _ believe their lies over my truth. If that’s what you’re going to do, then you might as well leave me here, because listening to everything I’ve done on repeat is what I do in here anyway.”

“And yes, I care if you hate me, probably more than anything. You said you didn’t, but it’s clear that you hate me. You fucking hate my guts, and you’re only here because you feel that it’s your duty as a hero.” He was in tears now.

“It would’ve been better if you left me forever, without saying all that shit.” He spat. “It would’ve been better if you left me with some hope than some part of you forgave me, because then, maybe, I would’ve been able to forgive myself. But it’s clear what you think.”

“You still call me Corvid. You still see me as a monster. I don’t blame you for that.”

“But don’t you  _ dare _ say your government knows more about what I have been working on for eight years than I do. Don’t you  _ dare _ paint me as the monster that they have painted me as all these years. Don’t you  _ dare _ blame yourself for having normal human reactions to what I did. Don’t you  _ dare _ blame yourself for hating me, because you have every right to.”

“I don’t want your apologies. I don’t want you to apologize for being human.”

Marion had whirled around, heard the quick footfall and turned in time to take the impact to his chest and grip the frame of the door on either side while it stuttered, unsure whether to open or close and with the dim light of the control room flickering beyond it.

The metal groaned under his grip- creaked and hissed and turned to dust; bent like it was made of paper mache.

"No," Marion gasped quietly, swallowing the pitiful sob that swelled in his throat, "I don't want to hate you. I want to forgive you. I could've  _ been _ you if I weren't so fucking lucky.  _ You are human too. _ "

It was all he could do to get out that much. What was that thing they said? The only people who can tell you the truth are a friend who truly loves you, or an enemy who's lost their temper. Something was niggling at the back of Marion's mind; things he'd heard, things he'd remembered. Stories and rumors. Things he'd written off because his superiors, his trainers had told him to. People got jealous; people tried to kick up dust. People hated any authority; any law, tried to spit all over it. But-

"I don't want to paint you as anything. I want the truth," He breathed hoarsely, letting go of the indented doorway. "Let me find the truth. I'll come back to you, and if I was wrong I swear to the gods I'll do anything to make it up to you."

“Oh, you don’t want to hate me? But you do. You hate me, don’t you? You still hate me. You still see me as Corvid, Marion.” He bit his lip. “You made me think I was redeemable. You made me think... you made me think I can be saved, but if you hate me...” he ran a hand through his hair.

“You say I am human, but you don’t believe it. You see me as sub-Human, less than man. Don’t you?”

He slammed his fist into the wall, the one wrapped in bandages and a cast, the broken one. He slammed his fist into the wall, and sank to his knees.

“Go away. You’re not helping, and if these are your attempts to, I don’t want them. If you are going to stand here and berate me for everything I’ve ever done, then you’re just like-“ he cut himself off. “I don’t want you.”

_ No. Wrong, this is all wrong, let me prove you wrong. _

_ Don't make me go like this. _

_ Please don't make me leave you like this. _

Marion shook his head faintly, seeing hazily through the tears and tamping down the sick twist in his core. "Whether or not I have given up on you is not your judgement to make," he replied, low, quiet. "But we will always share this blame. God, human, or monster, we'll always be on the same level. So tell me to leave again, and it will be your fault when I go. But it'll be my fault, because I will go."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	15. A Lot Could Happen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There ya go. You guys don’t even know who’s Bryant Luther is yet. Or... Alex. You guys are in for a wild ride.
> 
> Almost 100 hits! We were at 95 when I last checked. I’m updating with the hope it attracts more peoples. Tell your friends!
> 
> I’m going to try to schedule updates. Maybe every Wednesday? For now, enjoy this update spree. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough. Email me at rvnclw4evr@gmail.com
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He let out harsh, angry sobs, standing and spinning around. “What do you want from me?!” He cried. “What do I have to do? How do you want me to repay you?!” He screamed. “You-You keep rubbing my face in it, you keep blaming me like I don’t already know what I’ve done! What do you want me to do?! How do I fix this, Marion, how do I get you to see me as Greyson instead of Corvid? Must I tear myself apart again? Must I make you feel sorry for me? I don’t want that! I just want this to be over!”

"I already told you I do!" the man ran his hands through his hair, "I already think you're Greyson!  _ And _ Corvid, because you were the same person the whole time! You are complicated, and contradictory, and flawed and angry and talented and  _ beautiful _ despite everything but you won't believe me and-" he gasped, "Fuck me.  _ Fuck me _ because I just want this to be over too."

He straightened up, "You wanna know what you can do? How you can make me see what you're trying to say? Prove me wrong. Leave with me, right now. I will  _ find _ your research so you can show me what it means because actually fuck everything else, Grey. Come and help me end this once and for all, help me set things right again. That's  _ all _ I want."

“Then why do you call me Corvid? Instead of Greyson? Is it just because you’re mad at me? What triggered the change?” He let his arms hang limp at his sides.

“They won’t let me out, and you’re a dumbass if you think they ever will. I’m stuck here, and I can’t repay you, I can’t make it up to you. Can’t even fucking kill myself... so yeah, if you can find a way for me to prove it, go right ahead.” He tugged at his collar, at the bandages around his throat. “I don’t know how to fix this...”

Marion stood watching him speak, stayed still until he was done. He deflated slightly, rested a hand against the wall, because he knew it. He knew they wouldn't let the man out. "I called you Corvid because that's all I knew you as up until recently. It was a force of habit that took over when I lost my temper and stopped using my head. Because I  _ am _ a dumbass. A dumbass who runs his mouth and doesn't know how to give up fighting. I was just mad. It was an accident, and I'm sorry. But if you'll really still take it, Grey, I can find a way to make this okay."

“If you can help me fix it, by all means, you’re welcome to. Cause I’m.... I’m at a loss. I’m so confused, and scared, and... I don’t wanna be scared anymore. Help me stop being scared.” He turned around again, staring at the white, blank walls. He couldn’t look at his face. He’d cry again.

Marion let his gaze slide to the floor. His head was swimming in guilt; numb with the wish that he could take his anger back.

He nodded, and whispered faintly, "Okay."

And he left. Turned and took two steps out of the room and didn't look back because it would send another ache into him to see the figure left alone in the barren, silent room. He flinched as the doors slid shut, and somehow didn't remember much else until he found himself on the sidewalk outside the building, with the early evening air wafting down from above, the scents of fresh grass and wet asphalt and gasoline drifting by from somewhere else.

The man tipped his head back. His mask was up again; he looked past it on instinct now as easily as most people ignored their own noses. He stared up at the deepening blue sky, filled with puffy clouds that probably meant a drizzle later. "Don't know when to stop fighting, huh?" he repeated softly, voice suddenly tiny in the face of the whole heavens. A dead laugh escaped, and with a burst of energy and a flare of sudden wind, the man shot into the sky, he left the facility.

He listened to him go, climbing back onto the bed and wrapping the blanket around himself. He was filled with the fear that he’d never come back. He couldn’t stop his nails from digging into his skin. He couldn’t stop his fear, no matter how much he wanted to. And now the nurses weren’t scared he’d kill them... they weren’t scared to restrain him.

His hands were cuffed behind his back, so his nails wouldn’t dig into his skin. He bit his lip to keep from sobbing.

_ Please come back _ , he thought.  _ Please don’t leave me. _

He didn’t know what to do, and it scared him so, so badly. He was scared of Marion and of the nurses and of himself. He wanted out of here. He didn’t care how.

A lot could happen in forty-eight hours. Two days of radio silence. Of the nurses stopping by, talking, asking the occasional question, first to Greyson, and then just to each other. Quiet murmurs of "Pass me that, please," And, "Here you go." while they changed bandages and cleaned wounds. They brought him meals twice a day, and if he wouldn't eat it himself, they fed it to him. The touches were brief, professional, and always still with gloved hands. None of them bothered to feign care for the man beyond just doing their jobs, and maybe a clipped answer to any questions he asked. At night the lights were dimmed next to nothing, and then brightened again in the morning.

Forty-eight hours of nothing, not that there were any clocks in the cell to keep track on. Nevertheless, a lot could go on, it the big wide world outside that room.

When Marion came back, at the end of the second day, he didn't use the front door. When he stepped into the containment wing, it was through a side door from the fire escape stairwell. He was in his full hero uniform again- the suit of dusky blue and navy, woven into an odd mixture of geometrical and Victorian designs, the leather steel toed boots, the short, half-length cape, and shimmering mask framed by black curls pushed up into his signature style.

He ignored the surprise on the desk clerk's face as he strode past, ignored the stuttering, "O-oh- I wasn't aware that- I mean- sir, you shouldn't go back there-"

There was a hard set to the hero's mouth. He ignored the way she came out from behind her desk and dithered, and then hurriedly muttered something about getting the doctor. Once he stepped into the cell's control room, he locked the door behind him.

Marion stopped at the cell door. He stopped and stood there for a long, long time. The mask fell, and so did the anger in his expression, and it left behind unsurety. He knocked, once, twice, and then let it slide open, taking a half step inside. The cloth bag slung over one of his arms swung slightly, weighed down by the heavy books inside.

"Hey… it's me."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	16. How Can You Trust Me?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You ALMOST know who Bryant Luther is. He’ll be in the next couple chapters. He’s an ass and you should hate him.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

The panic attacks never seemed to stop. Sometimes he screamed and sobbed, sometimes he sat silently and trembled, sometimes he cried and shook violently. There was no fire, though, which made them infinitely better. He’d had rubber gloves locked to his hands, so that he couldn’t scratch at himself. Bite marks went up and down his arms, hidden under his sleeves, which had small red spots all over them.

He’d eaten sometimes, other times he’d have to be held down. It was humiliating, and he was often in tears he couldn’t stop. He was taken to shower every other day, which he always took his time during. The pressure of the water against his skin was better than the scratchy fabric, even if he had to look at his scars. They’d held him down while they shaved his face, too, but he’d jerked his head to the side, which resulted in a deep gash on his cheek.

He sat on the cot, knees pulled to his chest and his forehead resting on them. He couldn’t help the sigh of relief, though, when he heard his voice. He lifted his head, instead resting his chin on his knees. He caught the glimpse of anger, and felt his fear behind his eyes, and his own anger in his feet. It was quickly stamped out, though, when he noticed the bag.

“Let me see what you’ve got.”

It took Marion a second to reply; his eyes were taking in the sight of the other man with a look that left behind everything but stricken concern.  _ "Grey," _ and he was rushing forwards, the bag falling off his arm as he fell to his knees besides the cot, eye level to the other's chest, "No, please, wait. Let me look at you. What did- did this-"

The words died in his throat, because he knew exactly what had happened. And he reached out half-way towards the cuffs holding down the gloves, hesitating and meeting Greyson's eyes. "Can I?"

He didn’t meet his eyes, pulling his hands against his chest. It took him a long moment before the lump in his throat went down enough for him to speak. He held his hands out.

“Don’t touch my sleeves. My scars aren’t something I’m ready for you to see.” He didn’t lift his head to meet his eyes, but they were red and swollen. He looked tired, and... dehydrated. He didn’t sleep much, even in here.

It had been a long two days for him.

Marion looked up at him, eyebrows drawn together for a second. He nodded, and slowly reached out to touch the restraints. He didn't have the keys, and he didn't seem to care that they were half destroyed when he tossed them to the side.

"You were...you were right," He murmured. "It took me forever to find someone who would tell me where they'd taken the evidence. When I got to it...they hadn't solved any of the coding. They hadn't even been able to open any of the drives."

“They told you that I was a monster. They lied to you, and you believed them blindly. Do you understand why there are more anti-heroes than regular ones? More people who act outside the law rather than inside it?” He took the gloves off, crossing his arms once they were gone.

“My codes are impossible because they don’t follow any logic. There is no set letter for a, b, c, and so on. Each word is gibberish that I have memorized. They cannot, and will not ever be able to decode it.”

He backed away and settled into the chair, shaking his head slightly, "All I know is that they told me they'd figured out what your long-term plans were based on what they found after the raid. I-I don't know why they would lie, though." It was what had bothered him all the way over. "I'm supposed to be a rep for the police, which means that I should have access to all of this evidence whenever needed. But they didn't want to-" He broke off, sighed, and began to pull out the hardcover lab journals for Greyson, "But- that can wait for the moment. You made a case specific language?"

“Yeah. Pain in the ass memorizing it, cause it doesn’t mean anything to the untrained eye. There’s no rhyme or reason to it unless you’re me.” He mumbled.

“And no, I won’t teach it to you. I won’t make a code or dictionary or anything. All that stuff is for my eyes only.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s all that stuff in your bag? Did you bring my research back?”

"What I could. There are notes, supply lists...some samples and data logs, digital and paper. Some other things. To be completely honest, they don't really know that I have most of this," He turned a sheepish gaze back into the bag and set it up on the cot, "You should be able to make sense of it, right? They're your things. I was just… looking for things that might be able to help you explain what you were really… well, what your side of the story is."

“How can you trust my translations? How can you trust anything I tell you, hm?” He was a bit bitter. Just a bit. “Can’t access anything digital without a laptop. Lemme see what you’ve got.” He opened it, pulling out a few binders and such.

"Well… not everything is encoded, right?" Marion tried, watching the man flip through his work with a little bounce in his knee. "I know how to read transcript logs, and the like. There was an audio recorder they didn't know the password to, in the side pocket. And I can look at your samples myself. Up close."

“No, everything is encoded.” He turned it to him and flipped through the pages. “I’ll input the password for the audio thing.” He said as he dug through the bag. He glanced at him. “How’d you’d get this?”

"I told you, I… took it." Marion seemed almost a little embarrassed, "It wasn't stealing- technically I have clearance to all of this since I was on the case."

He leaned forwards to confirm that he in fact could not make heads or tails of the writing- the letters were English, and everything else was pure nonsense. To everyone but their creator, apparently.

Marion watched quietly, trying to stuff down the growing worry. Because what if Greyson wasn't lying? How was he supposed to interpret that? The detective in charge of the research team had made it clear in no uncertain terms exactly why the supervillain had posed a threat; there wasn't any benefit of the doubt Marion could spare. And what if they were right? How was he supposed to look Greyson in the eye and tell him that he knew it was all a lie?

_ One step at a time _ . "What's on the audio?"

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	17. Let Me Handle This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the fluff chapters later make up for this- I really hope they do. There’s more sadness before we get there, though m- a lot more. Those fluff chapters probably aren’t worth it.
> 
> Oh well.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

“Couple tests in case I didn’t live to write it down. That’s why I secured it behind a few passcodes. Cause it’s dangerous.”

He pulled a USB drive out of the bag. “Laptop? Anything I can plug this into?” He murmured. He didn’t look up at him, holding the drive in his hand.

He pulled some other binders out, just checking what he had. “What exactly am I meant to do with this? What do you want me to do?” He sat back. “I have it. Now what?”

Marion actually managed to crack a small smile, "In the bag too."

He reached for it, sliding two fingers along the padded lining along the bottom. With a faint flash of blue, it separated and he pulled the little computer out of hiding. "I just keep it incognito, usually. It's got some sensitive information on it too," He explained, booting it up and pressing his thumb to the scanner. "All yours."

He plugged the USB into it. “I won’t go digging, then.” He said as he clicked into it, playing one of the files.

_ ”Test #1- and for the record, if anyone manages to get through this, good on you. Please don’t blow up the planet, yea-“ _ He clicked out of it and clicked another one.

_ Test #29- I’m just a bit sick of failing. Euclidi beat my ass trying to get chemicals for this, so it better not blow in my face, or I swear he’s going to die-“ _ he clicked out of that one too, silent for a moment before he clicked onto the next.

_ Test #122- If you can call it that. Euclidi’s out cold right now, so I thought I’d give him a break. Let’s see if this works, hm?” _ He turned it off.

“...Nothing worthwhile.”

Marion's expression had a slightly nauseated set to it; he opted not to comment on the files, instead nodding mutely and digging around. "There was one more drive. I don't know what was on it," He murmured, handing it over with a flat look.

He took it, taking the audio out and plugging the new one in. He clicked a file, pulling a video up. It played for only a second before he pulled it out. “No. No, this one needs to be destroyed. There is nothing of use on it. I don’t want this one.”

Brow furrowing, the hero leaned closer as it began to play, and cast the other man a look as he backpedaled. "Wait, wait a second. I thought I saw something in the sub folders. It was...a title? Something about DNA mapping results. Let me see it again," He said, a minute bit of surprise and then curiosity lighting up his face as he plucked the usb up. "Actually- wait, there's a bigger screen in the control room."

He stood up, "Don't worry, I won't dig around either. Just the things that pertain to the molecular research," he promised, turning for the door."You can keep looking through the samples, maybe?"

He jerked it from his hand. “No. If we must go through this one, let me do it. This was... the last two weeks. A lot of stuff that’s going to make  _ me _ sick to watch. Let me handle this one.” He set it aside.

“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that. I can handle this.” He said, glancing around at the binders.

Marion's lips parted and closed, and he turned to give the other a slightly forlorn look.

"Greyson," he said simply, softly, with a drop of something fragile in the tone.

He looked up at him. “I can handle this. Okay? I promise. Breakdowns aren’t fun. I don’t want to trigger one.” He leaned back against the wall, sighing softly. “I’m sorry...”

Nodding slightly, the man came back. He settled cross legged on the floor, and leaned his back against the side of the bed frame. "...me too. I'm sorry."

"It's just...when you asked to see them. All of this." He reached up to his chest, pressing a hand over his heart. He didn't have to look to know it matched up with the burn. "It was so important to you. What...was it you were looking for?"

“I was looking for…” he paused, thinking for a moment. “For proof that I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was. Proof you were okay, that they’d fade one day and you could forget about me. I was looking for proof I could forgive myself. I... I didn’t find it.” He murmured.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I wanted revenge, but it wasn’t on you... I think I wanted revenge on myself.”

He bit his lip while Greyson was talking, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. "But why? Why do you want to hurt yourself now? After all of this. Why do you want me to forget about you?  _ I _ don't want to forget about you. I just don't want the pain."

“I want you to have... everything I always wanted. To take away the pain would to be to forget what I did to you. I want... I want to never have done it in the first place.”

"It's a low of life," He replied softly, "To look back on things you've done and know that you were- you are- capable of such cruelties. But that's still just part of what it means to be human. To hurt, and be hurt, and be pushed to the edge of your limits. I really meant it when I said I would heal."

He reached up, to put both his hands over his chest, push in slightly as if her were holding something precious to himself. "You did what you did, and it hurts me. But pain means more to me than something bad. I want to learn it; I want to learn how to live with it. I want to watch it fade into an ache and memories that are bittersweet instead of agony. I wanted that for you too, I just...it overwhelmed me, in the moment. And I-I blew up at you. And I'm sorry."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	18. It’s Not A Diary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready to cry! Grey had a sad childhood!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki
> 
> *This chapter is edited

He dropped his head and ran a hand through his hair. He pushed a book towards him. “Here. This one’s one of the first. Before I made the code. I was... 15 years old. Take a look at this...”

He leaned against the wall. “I don’t want to wait that long. I don’t want you to wait that long to heal. Is that why you’re here? For closure? To heal?”

Marion's eyes flicked between Greyson and the books once or twice; he reached over to stare at the cover, rub a speck of dust off the spine with one thumb. "No..? Closure? No. Seeing you in here- afraid, and hurting… it doesn't bring me any peace. Healing? Maybe. Maybe I'm here because I know I can't do it alone. And I know you can't either. Is that why you don't want to wait that long? It's just... so much work?"

He opened the cover up, while he spoke, tracing over the name page and then flipping to the first entry, to begin to read.

“I- yeah... I’m so tired already... I just wanna be done with this all, you know?” He went quiet as he watched him open the book.

_15 years old. That’s about how old dad said I was. Still a bit of a surprise... my birthday is on November 27th. I’m writing that down in case I forget. Probably a good idea with everything I don’t want to forget. My name is Greyson Nicholas Calva. For the last 9 years, I didn’t know when my birthday was. To the government, I died in an apartment fire with my sister when I was 6._

_Here’s everything since then._

"Mm," Marion murmured simply, fingers brushing down the rows of text as he read it, until he reached the bottom of the page. They stayed there for a split second; he flipped the page, eyes slipping up to Greyson and then back to the book. "You were a ghost," he stated, a tinge of melancholic understanding dawning in his expression.

He scoffed. “Dad had to make me invisible somehow."

_Starting is the hard part. Nevermind. I haven’t gotten to any other part yet. I wouldn’t know. This is hard._

_Dad always told me that if I left the house, I’d be arrested for my powers. That’s what happened to mom, he said. What happened to mom varied. Sometimes she died in childbirth, sometimes she died when she held me, sometimes she got arrested. I believed him for some reason, every time. Whatever happened, mom died before I knew her._

_The first ~5 years were okay, I guess. Laina was alive then. According to the records, she died in a fire. Dad was going to hit me for killing the cat, I think, and her hand brushed mine. Things dad held over my head: +2_

Marion knew how to hold a fairly good poker face; it was part of the job, but he knew that his eyes were a little glassy because he had to blink something out of them. Dead. Greyson's mother had died, and then his sister. And his cat. And maybe he was overreacting, but Marion had used to know that nightmare. It had never come true, for him, though. He flipped the page without looking up this time.

"And..he made you stay inside-always?"

“Well, yeah. He hid a fucking child for 9 years. That was hard to adjust from when I got out.”

_I remember the first cut._

_I went outside. Ran in the grass for a bit. Climbed a tree. We’d just moved to a house in the middle of who-knows-where. I was curious._

_The grass burned under my feet when I heard the door._

_He dragged me back with a grip that was way too tight for a six-year-old. He had on a pair of leather gloves, (those things were fucking infamous) and he sat me down in one of the bedrooms in the basement. He took his pocket knife and held my wrist, forearms up._

_I can’t find those four cuts under all the rest anymore._

_Fucking hell._

Marion's hands had tightened slightly around the edges of the book. _Fucking christ._

"That's not normal." It dripped with a little bit of disgust; it took him too long to realize he'd said that part out loud to hide the indignant anger. When he did, he shook his head; "That's not fuckin' _normal._ "

“No shit, Sherlock.” He crossed his arms, watching him read.

_There’s 235. Dad was never as brutal as he was the first time; there was never four in one “punishment” again. Sometimes I’d fall asleep and wake up with slits in the bandages and a bruise on my ribs. The last five aren’t from him, though. They’re on my thighs. He’d always said that it was his decision what the punishments were, and I couldn’t do them myself. So I thought, “well, I’ll leave the arms alone. That space is for his marks.” Those marks were before I realized I didn’t have to make them if he wasn’t here. I haven’t bandaged them yet, so I’m getting blood all over the floor of my apartment. Back of the book too. That’s what the stain is._

"How long were you _with_ him?" Low, dangerous. The journal shifted in his grip as he resisted the urge to turn the book around, because he was pissed, goddammit, not naive. He knew of the horror stories of parents who didn't accept children who turned out to be supers. Even though the past two generation were possibly the first to be born and raised with the concept as an inherit thing; it didn't mean it was always welcomed with open arms, especially by some religious minorities who could see the mutations as some occult defection.

“15 years. It was only for nine that he did that sort of shit, though.”

_The marks are what would stand out, if anyone based it on my body. The marks weren’t the worst though. He’d lock me in that room in the basement for days on end. I cannot stand the particular shade of tan that the walls in there are. There’s tally marks on them, too. That’s how I know how many cuts there are. I kept track._

_I’m out, now, though. I have to catch up on the last nine years of education. I want these powers gone... I hate this. I hate it all. I hate this life._

The page was stained with tears, ink smudged.

As he finished the page and turned it slowly, Marion glanced up to the other man with a mixed bag of emotions in the sharp blue eyes. "You didn't go to school for _nine years?_ But you're a _genius."_

It was all he could think to say that wasn't a fire-breath of a threat to punch whatever scumbag happened to be wretched enough to call himself Greyson's father. Marion had a sore spot when it came to superhuman children.

He shook his head. “Dad... kept mom's old encyclopedias. She collected them. They were in the basement outside my room. No government requirements cause- I was dead to them.”

_I cleaned the wounds up. I’m okay now. I’ve got a couple part time jobs by now, and I’m spending a lot of time at the library. I can’t sleep. I keep thinking that he’s going to find me, and the nightmares are getting continuously worse. So I’ve got a fuck ton of books. We’ll see where this goes._

"I started college when I was _sixteen_ because I'd been home-schooled with no breaks- how the hell did you pick up _genetic engineering_ so fast?" Marion looked at least a little distracted by the thought for a moment, maybe starting to really regret destroying as much of the labs as he had. It was more a rhetorical question, so he flipped the page forwards again. "Wait, let me guess- coffee and a fucked over circadian rhythm."

“I- Yeah."

_This is easier than I thought. Someone introduced me to superheroes. Fucking. Superheroes. They use their powers. PUBLICLY. And they’re honored for it. They aren’t arrested. I don’t know what the hell dad told me, but it sure wasn’t true. I could be a hero. I could be good. Maybe I don’t want my powers gone after all."_

"So you might as well have been pursuing a P.H.D," He joked badly.

Eight years. Fifteen years old. Marion did the math; he would have been just moving into his college dorm when Grey had gotten his apartment. The hero training program would have been just moving into effect country-wide, though the city had hosted a smaller version of that for a while. Two years later, Euclidi would be recruited into the program himself. Why hadn't Greyson become a hero too?

“Oh, I could have. It all would have been review at that point.”

_They didn’t take me. They didn’t. Fucking. Take me. I did all their stupid tests, showed them what I could do. All their goddamn simulations. And they didn’t take me. They said I was too dangerous. They said that my powers aren’t “hero-like”. Fuck them. I’m going to be a hero, I don’t care what they do. Maybe not now, though... I don’t want to be arrested..._

"It would've been difficult without the right documents anyway," Marion realized, "They did mention your birth certificate had to be... dug up again for the court file."

It could explain why they wouldn't let him into the program too. Marion couldn't fathom it- the acceptance rate could be harsh, and depend on how potent the ability came across to the test admin, but he'd heard that no one was supposed to be turned away based on power type. He could only suppose that the rules were more stringent before they'd gotten to him. They'd only opened the program up to non-US citizens in the past year.

“Yeah. They must’ve gone and found dad... dear gods. If you really must read the rest of that, don’t do it here. The harshest part is later. I wrote one of those every year. I don’t know what happened to this year’s. Or the rest of them, actually. Is dad still alive?”

"Your father? I...believe so..." Marion frowned a little, "I wasn't out of the hospital until after things were mostly over but from what I've read, they tried to get him in for some of the proceedings. It was supposed to be mandatory, but there are plenty of loopholes. Likely he didn't want to be indicted for anything so he just provided the documents and lay low for the rest." He paused, and closed the book with a scoff, "I'm not reading through your diaries without you there like some jealous high-schooler. But I--thank you... for sharing. It helps me understand better."

“Good. If he actually showed up, I might have had to see him again at my trial. I don’t care for the slimy fuck, and I really never want to see him again.” He set the book on the stack. “They’re not diaries, asshole. The only villain that would write a diary is, like... Dr. Doofenshmirtz. Autobiography, journal, whatever you wanna call it. Not diary.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	19. Karma’s A Bitch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s long! Decided to update one more time today, in honor of 100 hits! 
> 
> Meet Alex, you’ll hate her.
> 
> Bryant will be in the next chapter.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Marion's expression reflected understanding; that changed rapidly, however, into a mischievous kind of smirk- probably the evilest smile the man was capable of. "Oh, yeah? So, just to reiterate, you  _ don't _ want me to call them diaries and/or compare you to Dr. Doofenshmirtz," He grinned teasingly.

“If you don’t take me seriously I’ll  _ make _ you take me seriously. Dr. Doofenshmirtz isn’t even like... a real villain. He’s a chaotic dumbass who just loves his daughter. I… watched a lot of cartoons while I worked...”

"Which must take incredible multi-tasking skills. But seriously, Grey," Marion turned around and set the book down with the others, "How am I supposed to take your work as anything at all if I can't read most of it and you won't show me the rest? If there's one thing you've proven to me so far it's that you're holding some science that could really help a lot of people but I need to have proof of that- the kind of proof that's gonna hold up in court if you wanna get closer to being out of here."

He sighed. “What do you want me to do, hm? How can you trust anything I say? How can I prove to you that my notebooks say what I tell you they do?” He sat back against the wall. “I’ll need a dictionary, a pen, and a fuck ton of paper. I’ll make you a guide.”

"If that's what it takes- I pick up languages fast," Marion hummed doubtfully, "You could just use my laptop for part of it. Everything sensitive on there is remotely encrypted anyway. I can get everything else fairly quickly..."

“It’s not a language, though. There’s no rhyme or reason or law. It’s just random.” He opened the laptop. “A physical copy of a dictionary would be nice, though. Just as a guide... this is going to take me forever.”

"Rote memorization then. Got it," Marion chuckled a little, uncrossing his legs and leaning over to unlock the device for Greyson, then pushing to his feet, "Let me go ask the front desk if they have one."

Marion pressed his palm to open the door, let it slide open- and did a double-take, because standing on the other side was a woman. Arms crossed, expression far less than impressed, she raised a brow at the man. "He-"

_ "Fuck!" _ Marion interrupted in surprise, stepping back so the doors slammed shut. He paused for a second, then gave slight groan and gestured to the laptop in Greyson's hands, "Hide that for a second. I didn't think they'd catch on so fast." He didn't have much more time to speak before the doors were sliding open again to a much more pissed looking woman. "Goddammit, Euclidi," She practically snarled.

He slipped the laptop under his blanket, for lack of better places to hide it. “What’s going on?” The door was slammed shut, locking tightly. He stood, leaving everything where it was on the cot and stepping up to the glass, though he couldn’t see or hear anything through it.

He didn’t like this. He didn’t like how clueless he was. He pressed his palms to the glass and sighed, leaning against it. Oh, everything was probably screwed up and he’d never see Euclidi again.

The hero had allowed himself to be pulled out of the room, with an air of skeptical amusement, "Are y-"

"Shut up and put your mask on," The woman hissed, and Marion quickly realized that the control room door was opening. He pulled his disguise up as the secretary and a nurse entered, the former still wringing her hands in worry. Realization dawned in the hero's half hidden expression. "Ah- so I guess you really did call the doctor."

"No shit," the angry woman huffed, "And he called me. Which happened to be right after I got a call from our forensics department. What the hell are you doing? You two- go gather up everything in that room that wasn't there this morning," She gestured to the other two people, and the nurse sighed and went to open the cell door again.

Marion just sighed, "I don't know what you're talking about." He crossed over to the control panel to take the blinds off and switch the mic on, on the hunch that Greyson too was starting to feel a little concerned.

He glanced around as the nurses came in and took everything from the cot, including Marion’s laptop. He sighed, then turned to watch out the window. He kept his arms crossed.

He didn’t say anything, his eyes on his face, glancing back and forth between the two. Perhaps it was something about his case? Or just the research being stolen? Whatever it was, he certainly wouldn’t know if he asked about it.

The first thing to push through the mic was her voice, loaded with sarcasm, "-ou're talking about? You know  _ exactly _ why I'm here- what are you doing?" The woman had followed Marion deeper into the control room. He towered over her by far- guessing she was five feet tall would have been generous, but the leather jacket with the intricate tattoos disappearing into her sleeves, coupled with the fierce scowl on her face made her slightly savage looking.

Marion gave a slight laugh, "I'm giving the two of you a proper introduction. While you take all of his things, apparently."

"That's not his research anymore," She muttered, annoyed but still resigned, as if she were used to the hero's actions.

He ignored that, "Alex, this is Greyson- you know him better as Corvid. Grey, this is Al. Don't mind her mean streak- she's got a heart of gold. She's the city's healer class hero, aaaand...my coworker/friend?"

"Like hell. I don't belong to this place," Alex rolled her eyes. The look she gave Greyson might have ripped his guts out, if looks could kill, but otherwise she didn't address the man. "Boss wants to see you out in the lobby, Euclidi."

"Uh-oh," the hero turned a sheepish grin to Greyson, not seeming to take it as seriously as Alex, "I told you they didn't know about everything I borrowed. Guess I'm in trouble."

He watched the woman rant, and he didn’t dare underestimate her. He certainly didn’t want to get on her bad side, although it was clear he was already far over that line. He leaned his shoulder on the glass, his expression blank.

He gave a little wave and smile, bouncing on his heels. “It’s still my research, even if you have it. Einstein doesn’t have all his work anymore, but it’s still his. I don’t care what you do with my stuff, but you’d better give me credit where credit is due.”

His eyes moved to Marion. “Come back soon, yeah? You’re better company than the nurses.”

Marion gave a mock salute, making light of it if only to ease the palpable tension leaking off the healer hero. "Can do. Hang tight," He tossed over his shoulder on the way out. He took the bag back from the secretary, who offered it with a still semi-nervous, and hastily whispered, "Sorry-" as if she were afraid someone would overhear. He slung it over his shoulder and stepped out into the lobby, looking for the person Alex had pointed his towards.

She herself had slipped into a cynical kind of composure, arms staunchly crossed. She let some of the tension loose from her shoulders as soon as Marion was gone, and tossed Greyson a glance. "Credit's one thing. Ownership's another.  _ What _ were you two talking about in there?"

He watched him go, then stared at the door for a moment before answering her question. “Translating it. Or making a guide for the crypt. So I can prove that I wasn’t trying to poison or kill or otherwise horribly maim any heroes. Just trying to get rid of my powers.”

“You’re a hero, right? You look like one. You look at me like you’ve fought me before. What’s your hero name?”

He tapped his foot on the ground, not quite wanting to turn around and face the blank white walls yet.

"My field name is none of your goddamn business," She was quick to refute. "The hero title's honorific- I work mostly underground. People call me Alex unless they're trying to kill me or vice versa; I don't do the publicity shtick like Poster Boy over there," She jerked her head in the general direction of where Marion had exited. "And no, we haven't met. Not while I was wearing this face, at least. I haven't fought you before. My friends  _ have _ ."

The laugh was humorless, and she glanced off to the side, the honey brown eyes hardening. "I was at the hospital the night they brought Euclidi in."

“Ah, I see. The techie. The guy in the chair. I could never find someone like that- the cult following I had was a bunch of wannabe edgy teenagers. It was kinda funny, watching them.”

His smile quickly fell, the almost-Corvid-but-not-quite persona falling with it when she mention  _ Euclidi _ and  _ hospital _ in the same sentence. “Ah... I see...” he pressed a palm to the glass. “I’m sorry, I truly am.”

Alex rolled her eyes in a knowing kind of way at the first part, rummaging around in her pocket to pull out some bubblegum- the neon colored fruity kind- and pop a piece in, and she gave the man a distrustful side-eye as he expressed his remorse. For a second the woman seemed to be considering something; she reached over to the computer desk to pull out the chair, and planted herself solidly in it backwards to lean her arms on the backrest, "Okay, Corvid, I'll lay it out for ya. I'm not overly broken up about this all. I've seen shit, been places, ripped out someone's windpipe in a Somalian sewage drain."

She flashed a dark grin at the last part, but it was short lived. "Euclidi's body is probably the third or fourth worst one I've been called in to work on, so you  _ cannot _ blame me for wanting to know why the ever living fuck he's been skipping out on game night to come visit you. What did you  _ do _ to him in there?"

“Don’t call me Corvid, I’ve been degraded enough.” He commented when she said it, but otherwise let her talk. He seemed unfazed by her past work. He’d done some pretty bad stuff, after all.

“To be honest, I’ve been asking myself the same question. I tried some stuff on him, but none of it seemed to work. At least not on surface-level. I begged him to stop. Told him that he’s already done enough for me- and he has. He’s done too much. You’ll have to ask him for answers to that.”

Alex looked like she wanted to circle back around to his first statement, but it wore off with some flicker of annoyance, "Typical. I've been asking. He won't talk about any of that time, but like I said, I've seen enough shit to know there was more than experimentation going on. So why don't you gimme the beet juice?  _ What _ were you 'trying out' on him," she pursued pointedly.

“I didn’t expect him to say anything about it. I don’t like talking about it, either, and I’m the one who hurt him.” He pulled the chair from his desk over and sat down in it backwards, facing her. “I held his hand when my medics patched him up. Combed through his hair and told him he’d be okay. Held his head in my lap. It wasn’t much. I don’t think it worked.”

"And what exactly did you think that was gonna do for you? You were tearing the guy to shreds, didja think a bandaid and a lollipop counted as mercy?" Alex gave him a cranky huff, "No, you know what? I'm still pissed they wouldn't let me work more on the scars." She jabbed a finger against the glass, "I'm not the 'guy in the chair', by the way- I'm a black market surgeon with magical fingers and friends in high places which means there's no legal obligation against me coming back there and kicking your ass, so think carefully before you try to tell me you were attempting to be nice."

“Come back here, then. Come tear me to bits. The only reason I stopped doing that myself is because he asked me to.” He leaned forward. “I wasn’t trying to be nice. I don’t expect anyone who does what you do to understand what I was trying to do. All I’m saying is a that a hero double agent would have been a wonderful thing to have, and if I had had more time with him, he would’ve been mine.” He couldn’t stop Corvid from breaking past his lips. Those were Corvid’s words, but they were Greyson’s, too.

"You don't have half an idea of what all I do, then," the shark's smile split her face like a grimace usually would have, though she made no move to take the man up on his offer- right away, at least, just musing idly, "I guess I figured right, then. Usually the people with scars like his- the lacerations, contusions, names carved into the skin, stuff on their hips and chests- but not a single mark marring their faces- they're the ones getting pulled outta trafficking rings. Conditioned to be pliant- quiet.  _ That's _ what you were after. You wanted a lackey you didn't have to pay. Isn't that right?”

“Pliant- I wanted to mold him like wax. I wanted a lackey I could trust. One so scared of me, he didn’t dare step out of line when given the chance. And one who was in a high enough place to actually do something for me. Why not kill two birds with one stone, hm? Get the heroes off my trail and get a worthwhile helper.” He crossed his arms. Oh, he’d screwed up by telling her this. She’d tattle to Euclidi, and he’d hate him again. Greyson was only who he was around him because Marion had caught him in a weak place. He’d been faking, he supposed, a friendly demeanor. He didn’t know if Greyson or Corvid was the act anymore. He didn’t know which was the persona he put on.

"Son of a bitch. You really did underestimate him." Alex snorted through her nose, but she didn't overall seem as perturbed as many would have been, backing up her self-testament to a less that snow white ledger, "Well, I'll tell you one thing- you wouldn't have gotten us off your back. We fought you without Euclidi before, and if need be we would have found ourselves another version. But what about the rest?" 

Alex shifted forwards in her seat, the half-lidded look of sarcasm shifting into something more flinty as she commented in a lazy drawl, "You weren't just breaking him for sabotage. It was written all over him; you enjoyed every second of it."

“I did, didn’t I? I thought I would’ve broken him in two weeks. Spoiler alert- I didn’t and I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter.”

“How would he like to hear that he’s replaceable? I wouldn't have made you replace him. I would’ve sent him back as a spy.” He smirked, although that quickly fell, too.

She saw right through him. He had enjoyed it- in the handprints and the name and the whip marks and all the little cuts across the skin. He’d enjoyed the screams, and the realization hit him like a fist to the face. He didn’t show it, though.

Another hum escaped her lips, another razor blade of a steely smile that showed something predatory beneath the woman's cool exterior. "Yeah? So, I'm curious, bird boy. You actually think it's the end of the road? I mean, I know they're keeping you on the end of an awful short leash but solitary really must be the shits, huh," Alex sympathized with a little pout. "Kinda ironic that you held Mari's life in your hands and now it's almost completely the other way around! Karma's got a sick sense of humor, I've always thought."

“Is this not the end of the line? Is there really anything after this? The amount of times ‘you’re not getting out of here’ has been repeated really makes me think that this is the end.” He set his chin on the back of the cold metal chair. “I don’t mind if he kills me. I don’t mind if you do. I really don’t fucking care anymore. Wonder why.” He looked up at her. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

"I've got plenty to do. Because life's a dirty playin' bitch and unlike you or Mr. Model Citizen Smith, I decided to make her my bitch," Alex quipped back, the lightly Bostonian accent poking through a little more. She stood up suddenly, and stepped closer to the panel to take a better look around the cell, "So, here's how I figure. Obviously your first taste of AdSeg didn't make you feel so hot. Looking at this place it's no wonder. Jeez, is that a towel or a blanket?"

"I've also heard you're not gonna be allowed to off yourself anytime soon. That, coupled with the fact that your little farce of depression induced apathy doesn't stand a chance against another two months alone- or maybe three or four, who knows? Against another stretch of solitary, makes me think that Marion learning more about your plans for him really isn't in your best interest." Alex leveled an even stare at the man. "Are we on the same page here?"

He stood up. “You’re trying to blackmail me. Or bribe me, I can’t tell. What exactly do you want me to do, cause you know I can’t risk losing the one person who’s actually cared what happens to me?” He kicked the chair away, and it scratched along the floor loudly.

“It’s cold and bright and quiet and I really don’t fucking care what happens to me as long as I’m not left here alone.” He sat on the floor, his legs crossed, chin in his hands. “So yes, I think we’re on the same page. And it’s a blanket. According to what they told me when they threw it at my head.”

"Not blackmail. Not bribery," Alex raised her hands into the air in an innocent gesture, semi-amused laughter escaping as she finished her minute inspection of the cell and glanced back to the other, "In order for that to happen you'd have to have something I wanted. It's a threat. I'm threatening you."

She cracked a bubble with her gum and gave him the same half-bored look of calculation as earlier, "All of us were left reeling by how he attacked you after the plant raid. I respect it, but it wasn't in the plans, and it was impulsive and it got him in a bad spot. The world knows about the number you did on him. What they're wondering about now is the psychological damage." Alex huffed a little. "Nobody walks away from that shit without brain damage. Nobody. And you wanna know a little quirky thing about Euclidi? He's a fucking liar. You'll ask him how he is, and he'll look you in the face and lie through his teeth about being super duper because he gets a boner from doing the 'right thing' and because he'd shrivel up and die if he couldn't keep working, but I can see past that." She looked down at the man, glaring cooly. "I can always see past that. You think I wouldn't have noticed if you had succeeded in turning the kid into your lap dog and sending him back to us? Tough bet. You messed with the wrong fucking organization."

And with that, all the mirth dropped from Alex's tone and she crouched down to be more on his level. "I don't give a single rat shit how much time the guy takes out of his day for you, or how messed up in the head either of you are at this point. Euclidi will never belong to you, or anyone else, or to himself for that matter because he belongs to the  _ hero program _ . He signed his soul away and he's the most useful hero they've ever had, so none of them will take it lightly if you think you can start moving things around from in here. They were right- you're not getting out. And none of the research should be getting in. It was only a matter of time before we caught you, and it's only a matter of time before we crack the cyphers."

“Ah.” A threat. She was threatening him with the only thing she could get her hands on, the only that would actually work as a threat. She was threatening him with the only thing he actually feared, and that wa being forgotten. And goddamn, it was going to happen some day. The fear behind his eyes never seemed to stop.

“You are using him the same way I would have. You are bleeding him dry and using him up and taking every bit of passion he has for hero work and squashing it out of him. You are monsters. You are horrible, brutal monsters, and you are on the same level I am, if not worse. You are tearing apart children and you don’t give a goddamn fuck what happens to anyone but yourselves. Tell him what I said, and I will tell him what you did. I will tell him that he is nothing more to you than a tool.” He leaned forward, glaring at her.

“Whether he believes me or not is up to him, but he will realize how awful you are one I simply put the thought in his head.”

Alex let her eyes narrow at the defiance, jaw setting but she didn't look surprised in the least, shooting back, "Oh, honeydoll. Marion knows. He'll sugarcoat it but deep down he's twice as willing as the rest of us to make himself a tool, he would've done it anywhere with any work he had. They're helping  _ extend _ him- letting him reach more people before he burns out so he can die young and happy. As for the rest? I don't know what you're talking about. Like I said, I'm not an official part of the hero program."

She leaned back with a sickly smile, sweet and coated in venom. "You're not gonna tattle on me. What makes you think he'd stick with you even if he knew about the program? And anyway, they don't want him getting too upset. Like I said, the public has questions. And if he were to be diagnosed with, ooh, say...Stockholm Syndrome, or PTSD...you think they could let him come anywhere near you again? What kind of an example would that be to the public? No one wants that, of course they'd rather he stays working. But it would be simply out of our hands, at that point," She shrugged in faux helplessness. "Hard luck, buddy."

He sighed. “What can I do? What the hell can I possibly do? You’ve got me, not-so-fair-and-square. He’s my lifeline, and a lot of other peoples’ too. You just want to wear him out? Run him thin? What the hell can I do but care about him?”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	20. Mr. Calva

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t think I’ve said this before, but reading comments just like. Makes my whole week. I know there’s only three right now, but it just makes my whole body giddy. Leave comments! Leave all the comments!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!!!  
> -Loki

He stood and paced the room, a hand in his hair. He hated this. This uselessness. Marion was doing so much for him, too much, and he couldn’t repay the favor. He vowed that he’d do something for him, no matter the end result. If he had to tear himself apart, he would. A plan was already brewing. Marion was going to hate him, so, so much, but that was what people did for each other, right? People who cared? They helped, no matter the cost. And Greyson cared for him, for better or worse.

He slammed his casted fist against the glass. He was pissed, and he had no fire to burn it out of him. He could feel his throat closing in fear and fury.

He couldn’t do anything.

He had to do something.

"That's not the point," Alex snipped out quickly, smile disappearing, "Running him down isn't the point, it's not  _ my _ point anyway. I'm trying to make sure he doesn't get in the way of the program. You know what happens first hand when you do and he's already in with them deeper than either of us."

She gave the man an odd look when he smashed his fists against the glass. "Jeez, kid. Okay, I've made my point. Just stay quiet and stay out of our hair." The woman shifted, putting her wrist up to her mouth to speak into the smartwatch previously hidden under one jacket sleeve. "I'm done. You can finish up in there," She hummed softly into the device and then shoved her hands against her pockets, leaning up against the wall to watch Greyson like he was a penguin at the zoo.

This made him sick. Marion had been called out just so she could threaten him. And he probably already knew what they were doing... monsters. All of them. He might not be able to stop them, but maybe he could get Marion out of their grip. Force him to retire, whether he liked it or not. Whether he hated Greyson in the end or not.

“You’re fucking sick... you’re all so fucking sick.” He mumbled. He was glad he hadn’t been accepted as a kid. He was glad he hadn’t ended up a pawn for their uses. But Marion was. Marion had fallen for it.

"Rich, coming from you," Alex looked like he might have struck a nerve, the pissed expression from when she'd first entered starting to reappear. "Or did you forget about ruining Mrs. Frizzle's field trip to the plant? I patched up some of those kids too. The ones that made it, that is." She turned to face him, again jabbing a finger into the glass, "I told you, I'm not like you or Marion. I know this shit'll screw me over so I always beat it to the punch. I'm not giving up, to life or to any of these godforsaken systems, and if you think I won't do  _ whatever the hell and horseshit fuck it takes-" _

"Man, I hope you two haven't been going at it the whole time I was gone," The laughter sounded from the doorway as Marion let himself back into the room, with another figure behind him. Alex had let off with a choked noise, but she just gave a slight shrug, shooting Greyson a flat look. "Nah. I just told him to behave and he started talkin' shit. So I started talkin' shit."

“The difference is that I regret what I’ve done. You don’t. You  _ keep doing it _ .” He cut himself off when Marion came in.

“You threatened me first, asshole!” He spat back, still staring out the window. He turned when the other man entered the room, someone behind him.

“The hell are you?”

“My name is Bryant Luther. I run the New York branch of the National Hero Union.” He didn’t offer to shake Greyson’s hand, and he glared at him. “You’ve been taking up a lot of my hero’s time.”

Alex made a face at that, a mixture of rudeness and skepticism and she put her middle finger up at Greyson behind Bryant's back, in lieu of bursting out again. The hero, for his part, quickly realized he was probably the only person in the room not at least a little irritated and he set the book tucked under one arm onto the counter, and held his hands up in a placating gesture, "Again, sir, I  _ really _ don't mind. There's been a lot of follow up work he's been helping me out with anyway," the man laughed slightly, "Besides that I've been trying to bring to light some concerns as far as...the methods of confinement they're using here. I'm not quite done looking into all that."

"God, man, it's not like he needs someone to mother him." Alex scoffed, snapping another gum bubble and rolling her eyes. "And if he wants to talk about shit he's got a shrink. You haven't been drinking with any of us in ages, we all wanna catch up."

Marion flashed her a grin, "Aww, you do care about me."

"I'll kill you in your sleep."

Greyson crossed his arms, subconsciously backing against the wall. “He can do what he wants with his free time. I didn’t ask him to come here. I’ve  _ asked _ him to stop, and he clearly isn’t going to do that. ‘Kay?” He was more than a little pissed. And overwhelmed. Definitely overwhelmed. There were too many people, too many voices. He just wanted to be alone with Marion again.

He kept his eyes on Alex, glaring at her as she popped her gum. Bryant snapped to grab his attention.

“I understand that there’s some sort of code to your work, and that you were going to give Euclidi a guide to it?”

“I  _ was _ . I don’t know that I trust what he would do with that information, though.”

"Good lord Al, what did you say to him?" Marion frowned disappointingly at the woman like he was scolding a sibling, and she returned with an incredulous wave of her hands, mouthing something along the lines of 'the fuck was I supposed to say?' while keeping quiet, obviously not as talkative around the president of the NHU. He sighed and let it go, "Grey, you know I won't force anything out of you. But if we're all trying to use this stuff for the common good, what point is there in keeping it hidden? In fact, what was the point of implying we already knew what it was gonna be used for?"

He turned to Bryant, "Sir, you said back in the lobby that you had a contingency plan for if the lab guys can't make anything out of the research? I didn't know that this morning, or I wouldn't have bothered taking it out here. I just wanted to ask some questions. See if Mr. Calva wanted to cooperate willingly this time." It wasn't the whole truth, and the way his head angled briefly in Greyson's direction might have been a conspiratorial side glance, though it was difficult to tell. His visor had stayed up the whole time in the older man's presence. "Now that I know better, I guess it isn't necessary so there's really no need to worry. I apologize if I interrupted your schedule," He chuckled lightly, ignoring Alex's over exaggeratedly fake gagging in the background at the nicety.

“Woah, woah, woah, what happens to my lab if you can’t decode it?” There probably wasn’t anything in there, but it was his lab! They couldn’t destroy his lab!

He turned his gaze to Bryant while he spoke. “They’re  _ not _ going to use it for ‘the common good’, that’s the issue. They’re going to use it to create mega heroes. They’re going to lock up people who really don’t deserve it. They’re going to go overboard with the government, and suddenly this city is a dictatorship.”

He gave a quizzical look at ‘Mr. Calva.’ “You’re not getting a code for it, and you’re not going to be able to break it. Everything you try will be a shot in the dark. You will never be able to reliably decode it. Gotcha?” He glared, although his gaze softened when it turned to Marion.

“So are we good? Cause there’s way too many people in my room and it’s scaring me.”

"Well tough luck! What happens outside your cell isn't any of your business anymore, got it?" Alex bristled from behind the glass, "And they can decode it! They just need enough time, and anyway if there's a super out there with the ability to crack that kind of stuff it's still only a matter of time before we can find them, too."

Marion had turned to the single prisoner in the room while he spoke, and his shoulders slumped a little at the look Greyson had given him. "Alex," He stated, with an undercurrent of something firmer in his tone. "Mr. Luther. I think there's been enough discussion over this for now- of course, if you want to finish the conversation elsewhere that's fine with me but privacy is an inmate's right so if Mr. Calva requests we leave, it is our legal obligation. And as his intermediate I'll enforce that."

The woman gestured a yapping motion with her hands at the words, rolling her eyes for the hundredth time since she'd arrived, and just stepped back to lean against the control room counter. "I'm wanted in three countries. I don't care about your petty rules."

“They can’t decode it because there’s not logic to it.” He said, his voice quick. On edge. “Cyphers normally have a rule or something. Caesar ciphers move everything left or right by a certain number of letters. Some replace letters with symbols or other letters. Mine doesn’t do that. There is no logic, nothing. Each word is simply random. You cannot decode something that was not coded in the first place.” He was clearly nervous.

“Don’t call me Mr. Calva just cause your boss is here. I don’t like the name. If you have to call me anything, Greyson or Corvid will do.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Fuck your organization, Mr. Big shot. Fuck your entire organization and everything you do. You’re draining the life from heroes and you don’t give a flying fuck what happens to them, and I won’t stand here and let you tear the only boy who gives a fuck about what happens to me apart. I don’t care what I have to do. I don’t have powers anymore, but I’ve got fucking fists, and I will use them.”

Oh, this was a panic attack. His words were rushed and impulsive. He was scared, for himself and for Marion.

Marion sounded like his eyes were wide; he shifted his stance, "Hey, woah, okay. Okay, Greyson. Okay. Guys-" Again, the order to the other two, but it was more demanding this time. "Out, please."

Alex glanced between the three men; obviously loathe to leave while Bryant was still just standing there, but suddenly uneasy in the light of Greyson's reaction. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, muttered something under her breath, and then turned, the door to the outside world slamming shut behind her.

As for Bryant, he stayed a moment longer. Unperturbed by Marion's insistence, the silver-haired program leader stared Greyson down like he was a bug, a slight hum escaping as he appeared to be thinking. "Very well," The man replied finally, waving it off as he turned to go. "I'll be speaking with you more later, Euclidi. Oh, and you- Corvid," He turned at the cell entrance and cast Greyson a flat, hard look, spitting out the name like it was a bite of rotting apple. "Shouldn't say such reckless things. It's...unprofitable."

"Sir," Marion repeated, quieter this time, and Luther finally acquiesced without another word, letting both sets of doors be shut behind him. The hero released a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, and then stepped closer, carefully. "Hey, Grey. I'm gonna touch your shoulders, if that's alright with you. I want you to breath with me, okay?"

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	21. Keep Her Away, Please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, next couple chapters at least have a slight break, and then we go back to stringing up Greyson by his toes and letting him suffer.
> 
> Remember to like, comment, and share with your friends! I don’t want to be that annoying person, so only if you feel like it! I swear I won’t say this every chapter.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

“Do you think I give a fuck about your goddamn profit?!” He spat at him, leaning against the wall and sinking to the ground. “You’re fucking bastards! All of you!” He spat.

He nodded quickly, his breaths quick and uneven. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Okay. You can touch me. That’s okay.” It was all so much for him. He was so sick of it. He couldn’t do it anymore. Marion was in more danger than he was, and yet he was still here, comforting him.

“They threatened me. Did you hear that? They said I ruined your head. She said she’d make sure you’d never come back if I tried anything. She said I’d be here for months, alone. I can’t do it...” he sobbed. He couldn’t let Marion get hurt. Not by their hands, at least. He’d save him. Whatever he had to do.

"What the fuck? Alex, what did you do…?” The surprised words weren't meant for Greyson; they were barely audible, as the man settled down to grasp his shoulders, then move one hand up to cup his jawline- one finger rubbing a soft back and forth motion on the junction where his earlobe met his neck. Marion's visor had disappeared, leaving his eyes soft and full of concern, and he hushed the other gently, "Shh- it's gonna be okay. Just breath, don't think about it- just for a second. Just breath with me," he murmured, leaning a little closer with the repetitive motions and words. "Just breathe. In… try to hold it… and out. And again..."

He hiccuped, but leaned into his touch, his eyes downcast. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, leaning forward. “I’m s-sorry... I’m sorry, please don’t hate me... please don’t hate me, please don’t hate me...” he whimpered.

Greyson couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. “They’re using you. They’re going to bleed you dry and leave you to rot. I can’t... I can’t watch that. I can’t do it. I can’t do it, Marion, I can’t....”

He took slow, deep breaths, shivers wracking his body. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t...”

"It's gonna be alright. Breathe," Marion repeated, firm and gentle as he let his forehead fall forwards enough to touch Greyson's lightly. He was focused on stabilizing the other, a minute or two passing before he finally spoke up.

"Grey, Alex… she has an intense personality," He murmured, sliding his arm further around the man's shoulders to rest there. "She's used to fighting a lot of battles, and she's very upset with you right now- very upset in general. And- well- she's got a knack for finding out what hurts the most to hear, and she uses it. That  _ doesn't _ make all of it true. Listen to me- it doesn't."

He shook his head slowly, "I don't hate you. I really don't, and I'm not leaving you alone here. I'm going to be just fine. Okay? Forget what she said. Just forget it. You've seen what I can do. I'm strong, strong enough for the two of us if you wanted, even. And I'm not leaving you alone. Everything's gonna turn out okay."

He let him press his forehead to his, shifting and pulling himself into his lap, burying his head in his shoulder.

“It sounded true.” He mumbled. “She said they’re using you, and you know it. She said you belong to the agency. Not me, not her, not even yourself. And damn... it sounded true. She said they were going to work you to the bone. I don’t want that... I can’t lose you. You’re all I have.” He was going to develop a rather unhealthy obsession with him at this rate, that was for sure.

“I can’t just  _ forget it _ . You can’t stay strong forever- trust me, I’ve tried. You’re going to break. You’re going to be just as bad as me, and I can’t... I can’t let that happen.” He wrapped his arms around him.

The hero stayed silent, hands wrapped around and pressing lightly into Greyson's back, as a steady grounder. "She said the same thing to me when we first met, Greyson- well, not that exactly. But something about how I was stupid for 'selling' myself into the program and how she was only there to help train me because she pitied me. Alex has a rocky relationship with the Hero Program. She does what we need her to do, but she doesn't trust anyone and insists on staying partly severed. If the way she worded that made it sound like she didn't care about me, it's because she didn't wanna sound weak. Or she wanted to scare you, or both."

He took a deep breath. "I know I'm not invincible. I know that there aren't always the best intentions mixed up in all this political business, trust me, I know. That's why I wanted to follow up on the whole research thing- they really shouldn't be hiding things from me and I intend to sort it out. But the hero program was established to help superhumans, everybody knows that. It gives some of us jobs and houses and training, we get to learn how to control our powers and harness them for the people's good. Maybe it wasn't my first choice, but I love my job, Grey. I love my friends, my teachers, all the amazing places and people I can meet and help. And I want to stay at it for a long, long time- with or without the program. I'm not letting anyone take that away from me." A faint smile showed in his tone, and the man gave Greyson's back a playful pat, "Not even you, haha! You did your best, though."

He clung to his shirt, burying his face in the fabric, clinging to him like his life depended on it. “I’m so scared for you.” He whispered. “I can’t do anything... I can’t... If something happened to you... I wouldn’t even know. You’d just stop coming. No one would tell me...”

“I don’t like her. I don’t like her at all... keep her away? Please?”

He arched his back into his touch, his whole body pressed up against his. He needed him. That was for certain. He couldn’t make him hate him, so that plan was out the window.

Alex could still tell him. Alex could tell Marion what he said... then what? Greyson wouldn’t be there to defend himself. Marion would hate him, Greyson was certain of it.

“I need you.” He whispered. “ _ Really _ need you. Don’t let anything happen to you, okay...? Please?”

He let his lips twitch downwards, a bittersweet twist in his gut as he gently massaged circles into the man's back.

Marion didn't like forcing Greyson into depending on him. Didn't like the nagging feeling that he was manipulating the other, even though he didn't know how he was supposed to have seen any of this coming. But at the same time he wondered if they would have come to the man anyway eventually, if they couldn't crack the code. He tried to banish the suspicion that maybe, just maybe that had been why they'd kept Greyson alive- in case they needed him later. It was a grim thought, and he quickly let it go.

But his arms tightened the faintest bit around the other as he realized again how unfair it was, how anyone from out there could come in, come to the man in the cell and say anything they wanted to him, and Greyson wouldn't be able to escape. Wouldn't be able to run, or even demand his own privacy. It made Marion's stomach twist- how exposed, how relentless it must seem to the other, and he vowed again that he would help the man heal enough to escape this room someday. There wasn’t much else he could do in the meantime, and so he vowed too, to hold Greyson for as long as he needed him.

"Dying isn't really on my schedule," He breathed softly, the rough laugh rumbling in his chest again. "And I'm only just starting to get back into my regular hero duties. I'll keep Alex away if that's what you want, but I'm not gonna just abandon you. We're gonna figure something out and go on from here, yeah? Everything's gonna turn out."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	22. Stars Over Ellis Island

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go! Comments really motivate me, like, you don’t even know. I’ll do my best to reply the them, maybe to a Q and A if you guys are interested in that? I’ll keep track of your questions, and if I get enough I’ll put them in a chapter.
> 
> This chapter is the fluff. I know you guys are gonna wanna come back to this, so I’ll write that here so you don’t have to scroll through all the chapters to find it.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He bit his lip, his breaths slowly calming down. He could feel his heartbeat, in his hands and chest and throat, and he could feel his breath in his chest and stomach. He was so warm, and so, so alive.

He got Greyson’s share of it.

Greyson wrapped his legs around his hips, arms around his shoulders. “Help me sleep...? Please? The nightmares don’t stop in here, and the panic attacks don’t knock me out like they used to. I’m so tired...”

He hoped he wouldn’t say no. He hoped he’d lie down on the cot and curl up with him, and Greyson could sleep wrapped in his warmth, wrapped against the boy who was so  _ goddamn alive it wasn’t fair _ .

On the other side of things, Marion had suddenly found himself facing a totally different dilemma.

The man was used to comforting people- it was part of the job as well. Pulling survivors out from under the rubble of a collapsed building or burning out house fire or crashed car, he'd come to know the feel of desperate hands and tear-stained cheeks; he understood it himself, the overwhelming need for a tight embrace, for human contact when it felt like everything solid- the world itself, even- had shattered around you. He was used to it- so why was Greyson's touch making his cheeks heat up?

The hug had been one thing, the arms around him, even the weight in his lap, but with the legs wrapped around his hips and the arms wrapped around his shoulders, he suddenly became painfully aware of how close their bodies were pressed, of how the man's breath felt, warm and damp against his neck. There was an involuntary flutter in his gut- a twist of something blossoming that made his eyes widen as he stared at the wall Greyson had slumped against before.

Marion snapped out of it in a split second, though. Jerking a little, he railed against himself silently. How could he even  _ think _ of the man that way when Greyson was obviously trusting him with so much, already facing so many of his own demons? The man was trapped and alone; of course he'd ask for company, but that didn't mean Marion was free to move any closer than he needed to help the other out. Doing any more would have been taking advantage of the venerability. Besides, there was still their...history. Greyson needed a friend, a mentor maybe. Nothing else.

Shaking that away, he replied a little hastily, "Er- you want me to help you fall asleep? I can do that- gosh, this all must have been draining. I'm sorry."

His arms wrapped tighter around the other man, the corded muscles in his arms shifting slightly as he used the position Greyson had put them in to stand up, now that his legs were around his waist and he wouldn't fall as easily. He took the slight two steps over to the cot and set the other man down on it gently, pulling back to reach for the thin blanket. "I'll just- you can get comfortable, do you want me to just sit down on the floor? We could talk some more, or I could tell you a story or something."

He was hesitant, when he wrapped his arms and legs around him. He thought that maybe Marion would push him off and go. He was terrified, so very terrified that Marion would leave him. He took a deep breath as he was lifted onto the bed.

“I... just hold me. I just need you to hold me...” contact was something he never got, before. Not without layers of fabric, and not without pain coming with it.

And Marion was here, with his kind touches and gentle caresses and smiles. His dark curls that were such a contrast to the walls and bright blue eyes that were the only real color he got. He knew this was bad. He knew he couldn’t have him, that this was closer to Stockholm syndrome, and that he probably only wanted him because he was the first to show him kindness in so long.

But that didn’t change anything.

“...Please?”

The response was a simple hum; Marion let the blanket unfurl to its full length and cast it around Greyson's shoulders, then moved to sit cross-legged on the cot. He held out an arm, "Yeah, I think that's doable," The man replied amiably, "C'mere."

He climbed into his lap, pulling the blanket along with him and humming contentedly. His forehead was pressed against his chest, his back hunched over. He smelled so different than the facility did.

“You don’t hate me.” He said it more to himself than to Marion. He didn’t hate him. He was here. Sitting in his bed. Holding him.

“I wanna get out of here...”

"Yeah, no fucking wonder," Marion huffed a slight laugh, his fingers brushing up the other's back for a second, before he shifted again, and gently tugged the other down, "You're tired, Grey. Lay down; it's okay."

He let all the second thoughts go, if just for the moment. Grey was tired; he'd help out. If he could drown out the things that dragged the other man down, he was willing to do so. "What's the first thing you wanna do? Once you get out? What would you wanna see?"

He laid down against him, his head resting on his chest, eyes shut. It felt nice. So, so nice. He was so warm...

His head rose up and down with each breath, calm. Even.

“I know I’m tired... I’m so fucking tired... I was tired the second I got in here, and I’ll be tired until I get out.” He was quiet for a moment.

“I want to see the sky. A sunset, and then the stars. The stars were what amazed me when I got out of my dad’s house... they were so beautiful... are they still like that? Are the stars still beautiful?”

He leaned back to accommodate the motion, sliding down a little against the wall so the man could have a more secure surface on his chest. He laughed softly,  _ "Yes, _ Greyson. Yes, they're still heart-stopping. Sometimes, when the sky is clear, I fly out to Ellis Island."

He glanced down at the other, and a tiny smile slipped onto his face. He began to rub his fingers up and down the man's back, a soft pressure through the coarse cotton cloth, soothing in its predictable monotony. "I fly out and sit right up on top of the statue, while the sun goes down over the city. It's a picture, Grey, every time. Bright fire on the horizon, piercing through the buildings, red and orange. Above that, the pink, peach and rose, and if there are a few clouds it turns them into cotton candy. It glints off the windows too. Turns the streets and skyscrapers into glitter. Then it's purple- lavender and dove grey, deepening to a royal shade almost overhead, and then the richest navy you've ever seen, and the stars start to be visible. Out over the ocean, it's pure night."

He shifted while he was painting the picture, eyes closed as he imagined it too. "Just the deepest blue of the sky, and the black water. Some boats are there, flashing red and yellow lights out across it but otherwise it's pitch dark. And the stars- they coat the sky. There was a power outage once- so the city lights didn't dull the view, and it was like someone had spilled out a vast bag of stars, they were like dust. The milky way spanned the whole heavens, from one end of the horizon to the other. Ursa Major, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Orion- they were all out."

Marion's voice had taken on a soft tenderness, as if he were speaking of something he loved- something he really, truly adored. "Grey, you could watch them for a lifetime and you wouldn't know half of them. If you stare long enough, it starts to feel like the constellations are reaching out to you. Like they're talking. I used to camp out on the knoll overlooking our farm. I'd stay up in my sleeping bag, and whenever a comet whizzed by, I'd make a promise to myself. Always the same one." He paused, a smile curling the tone. "You should too. You should think about what you'll promise yourself when you next see one."

He listened to him speak, listened to his voice paint beauty in an empty room. Listened to him turn the white walls into a night sky, and the cot, the island. Stars he’d never seen before populated his mind, stars he’d never seen and wished he’d see one day. He wanted to sit there with him. He wanted to watch the sun go down, and the stars come out, and the water go black.

And suddenly his shoulders were rising and falling rapidly. He was crying. Silently, yes, but he was crying. He missed it. He missed the moon and the craters. He missed Central Park (which he burned more often than visited). He missed the leaves in the fall and the snow in the winter. He missed how the bite of the cold against his skin would make him feel human.

He missed how he used to go there in the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, and bury himself in the snow when he couldn’t sleep. When he was on the edge of burning himself out, or a full-blown panic attack. He’d go out to the park and find somewhere no one would look, and bury himself in the snow. He only did this at night, because the snow didn’t melt at night. It made him feel like a man, not a villain. A college kid instead of a mad scientist. He’d sit there until his body was ready to give out, or until the sun rose. Whichever came first. Euclidi didn’t bother him in the snow. His work couldn’t touch him in the snow. His thoughts couldn’t reach him in the snow. The snow had been safe.

He fell asleep with wet cheeks and eyes, hiccuping against his chest, clinging to his shirt in an iron grip.

Marion let his gaze slip from the far wall- his eyes clear as they came back to reality. He looked down again at the form pressed up against him, then let his head make a faint, dull thunk as he rested it back against the wall. His hands still moved, idly brushing up and down the other man's back though slowly, surely, the movement tapered off until he was resting too, eyes closed and mind turning over into a drowsy fuzziness.

He started a little as he began to slip to the side, looking around for a clock before he remembered that there wasn't one in here.  _ God, that really can't be good for anyone's mind. _ Blinking once or twice to shake the heaviness off his eyelids, Marion began trying to gently detach himself from the other man without waking him up, regrettably having to use a little of his powers to manipulate the atmosphere just so- praying Greyson was sleeping deep enough to let him stand.

He shifted in his sleep, but didn’t wake up when he was set on the bare cot. He was lying on his stomach, the rough fabric shifting over his shoulders underneath the towel-blanket. He noticed the loss warmth, subconsciously, and nuzzled into the cot.

A nurse poked her head in with his dinner. “Did you get him to sleep?” She asked softly. “He never sleeps. Not without nightmares or panic attacks or sedatives... what did you do...?”

The visor flickered up like an instinct; after so many years, it was one, to be fair. Marion turned and held a finger to his lips, the small smile growing again as he brushed off the table for her to set the meal down. "We talked," he murmured quietly. "We just...talked."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	23. I Hope You Can See Them Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fluff! I think it’ll last for another couple chapters, but that all depends on how I separate the chapters. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He backed away to let her work, and stepped out of the room. Settling down with Greyson for that short while had reminded him of something; he went up to the secretary at the desk, speaking for a few moments before she handed him the key to one of the storage rooms. He went back there and reappeared with some unopened parcels, returning to the cell with the box under one arm. "I have a question for you, Miss- afraid I never caught your name," He spoke lowly to the nurse again as he set the box down on the table and began to open it, just running a finger along the top to split the tape and the shipping label. "When he has the panic attacks- the nightmares. What's done to help calm him down?"

“I-well- nothing, sir. He gets violent. It isn’t safe for anyone to be in the room with him without heavy security, and it simply isn’t healthy to sedate him each time. They happen so often...” she stepped out of his room, muting the speaker so they didn’t wake Greyson. “Stick around. The nightmares will start soon. Oh, I feel so bad for the boy, but I’ve been instructed not to do anything.”

He sighed faintly, shook his head, offered her a little smile, "We're all just working with what we have. Don't worry yourself too much." He pulled a few wrapped things out of the box- a bigger blanket and a foam mattress topper shrunken impossibly small in it's vacuum sealed packet.

"You take shifts with the other nurse, right? I'm going to stick around until they get here, so you can go home if you'd like," He offered, tone hushing again as he grabbed the book he'd set on the counter and went to step into the cell again.

“I-I’m not allowed to do that. I could lose my job if I left him unattended- just in case-“ she sighed. “I’ll be here if you need me. He certainly needs you.” She stepped out of the room, leaving him alone with Greyson, whose face was scrunched up in a grimace, his hands twitching.

The nurse was worried about leaving him alone, but he was a hero, right? Greyson would be fine with him, and Euclidi would certainly be okay, seeing as Greyson didn’t have powers anymore. She was one of the only nurses in the building who thought of him as Greyson, instead of Corvid. He’d show appreciation for that, so as far as she was concerned, she was doing her job right.

Those last four words, simple and matter-of-fact as she'd said them, made him turn and watch her until she was gone. "..." He chuffed slightly, a small bit of quiet laughter, shaking his head and turning back to note Greyson's condition. He stayed quiet, though, and made another trip to bring the pillow and the tightly folded covers and make everything up as much as he could.

The sheet covered mattress topper was left to the side to fill with air on its own; he couldn't do anything about that while Greyson slept on the current and sorry excuse of a bed. But he began to unfold the blanket. It was weighted and heated, and so he sat down cross-legged with it, glancing up at the other man every once in a while to check how he was doing while he fumbled to figure out how to turn it on.

He shifted and whined, his brow furrowing deeper as the nightmares began. He gripped the netting of the cot, although there weren’t any cries. Not yet, at least.

Nightmares were common among both hero and villains, very similar for both groups. Greyson’s were a mesh of it all- a horrible crock pot of everything he’d been through. Words were no use. The dreams mad no sense, but they terrified him to no end.

“I... dad... I’m sorry...” he whispered. “I’m sorry... stop it...”

The damn blanket needed batteries. Marion had grumbled a little under his breath, standing and dragging the it out with him to the control room where he'd checked the packaging, found nothing, and gone on to investigate the previously locked drawers of the various storage spaces and filing cabinets. Eventually he chanced upon a half-opened pack of double A's, barely biting back the triumphant noise as he slotted them into their little compartment and turned the knob to heat it up to what he assumed was a comfortable temperature. It was weird; Greyson's body heat seemed normal to him, but the man still had stated it was frigid compared to what he was used to.

He was halfway back in, door sliding shut, when he realized Greyson was having the predicted nightmare. Creeping forwards softly, he lay the blanket down, and carefully lay a hand on the man's shoulder, frowning as he debated whether it was worth waking the man up to another possible panic attack, or taking the risk of letting him stay and hoping the nightmare would pass without him remembering it when he woke.

He didn’t calm down when the blanket was placed over him. Not instantly, anyway. He froze, and then his eyes blinked open as the warmth and weight of it sank in. He looked up at him for a moment, the expression on his face unreadable. “Where... where did you get this?” He nuzzled his face into the warmth of it, pulling it farther over himself.

Greyson reached a hand out, tugging at Marion’s like a child, a small pout on his face. He clearly wasn’t happy that Marion had gotten up. He craved contact, even while he slept. Marion couldn’t get out of that.

"I ordered some things after signing all that paperwork. Lucky you, I've got a fast shipping subscription," Marion explained distractedly, plucking up the last of the packaging to shove it into one bag so he could toss it later. He made a surprised noise in the back of his throat as his hand was taken, and laughed faintly, twisting it around to grasp Greyson's hand, not immediately understanding the silent demand. "Wait, wait- hold on a second. I got the blanket so you'd have something to keep you warm, you don't need me anymore. And there's still the mattress-"

“Of course I need you.” He mumbled. “You’re  _ you _ . But... thank you.” He got up, pulling the blanket with him so he could get the mattress topper on the cot. He placed his chin on his shoulder, even as he tried to move. He didn’t want to let go of Marion. He wanted to wrap him up in the blanket with him and never let go. Never let him get hurt.

"Were you always this sweet or did it take two months of intense self-reflection to be that way?" Marion chuckled, moving to help settle the bedding. "There- that should be ten times more comfortable. Seriously, get some sleep. You need as much as you can take."

“I know...” he mumbled. “Are you leaving?” He didn’t want him to go, tucked under the weighted blanket. It felt nice. It was warm, and the mattress topper felt so much better than just the cot. He certainly was tired... a little sleep would be nice, wouldn’t it?

The hero hesitated; looked over his shoulder to the closed doorway. "...Not quite. I'll stay until you're dozed off again, wait for a bit to see if anything kicks in. You were… having a nightmare."

He leaned over to rub Greyson's shoulder through the thick covering. "Think you'll sleep sounder now?"

He nodded a bit, taking his hand. “Stay by me, then. I wanna hear you talk...” was he being too demanding? He wanted him, that was true. Perhaps he should let Marion go...

Marion didn't look overly bothered by the request, raising a brow and squeezing the hand slightly. "Okay," he mused, "We can ask questions back and forth, one question each, then one answer. Nothing deep. I'll start. What's your favorite color to wear?"

“Indigo.” He curled into the pillow. “Hence my suit color. What’s your middle name?” He closed his eyes. It was so soft. Everything was so soft. It was so… odd. So different than everything he’d felt for the last two months.

"I have two. Arturo is the first. How do you like your coffee?" Marion let his eyes slip closed as he spoke, biting back a yawn. Maybe that cat nap he'd taken had made his body want to curl back up and sleep, or maybe it had just been an exhausting day.

“In Frappuccino form. I normally drink it black, though. More caffeine.” He took a moment to think about his question. “...How old are you?”

"I haven't said? Twenty four, as of last month. What job would you pick, if you could work at anything?"

He didn’t think about how that meant Marion had been a child when they started fighting. He didn’t think about how he was a year younger. “An actor. On broadway. What’s your second middle name?”

"Extravagant. It would suit you." The man shifted to lean against the cot, shifting his hold on Greyson's hand. "It's Joel. Each of my parents- I have three- picked one for me. Joel was my dad's choice," And he sounded like he was rolling his eyes fondly. "What pet would you choose?"

“Greyson was my mom’s idea. Nicholas is my dad’s name.” He murmured. “I’d want a dog. A small one I could hold.” He was getting drowsy. “What do you mean three parents...?”

The hero took a quick glance over his shoulder, and suppressed another smile. "Just relax, now. I'll tell you about them."

Marion rubbed a thumb back and forth over the inside of Greyson's palm, a mindless gesture as he figured out where to begin. "My parents were immigrants. They lived in a very small, remote, very close-knit farming community, way out in the foothills in Italy. Our bloodline had lived there since our ancestors were pushed out of the east by wars." His voice was soft, just the rise and fall of a calm voice over the sound of the silence. "My parents were set up to be married by their parents. My mom was fourteen. My dad, eighteen. They were supposed to inherit my great-grandpa's farm and have two kids by the time he kicked it. Once they were left alone in a bedroom, they found out that both of them were dead set against having any kids, or a farm. So instead, they left the country. Snuck out together in the dead of night. Stayed married, so they'd be safer on their way to America. Several years later they'd managed to earn enough money to help another girl escape the community, a childhood friend. And...well, long story short, the three of them fell in love with each other. They married her in secret because it was illegal. And… that girl was my birth mom."

He paused, chuckling faintly. "None of my parents are… around. Lucetta- my birth mother- she had too much weighing on her, left when I was four. My mom and dad went back to a marriage of convenience, but lived separately. Us kids would circle around through custody- five days in the country with my mom, weekends in the Big Apple with dad. It was fun- they let us take the train by ourselves once we got old enough. Until I was fifteen and he got cancer. Diagnosed and gone, all in a month."

Marion sighed, his eyes somewhere far away. "We weren't close anyway, really. And my mom- not blood mom, but  _ real _ mom- she's… in witness protection now, with my siblings. I don't know where they are. Usually we're allowed phone calls on my birthday, and Hanukkah, but- I missed the first one this year so I'll have to wait a while."

He half expected Greyson to be asleep- or, fully expected it, otherwise he would have kept the last part to himself, probably. "I… miss them. I miss her. A lot," The man murmured under his breath, hands stilling. "I wonder what they're doing."

He listened to him speak, his grip on his hand relaxing after a while. He listened to the story of his family, and wondered. Wondered if all families were like that, if he was normal. Wondered what normal consisted of. Wondered if he knew how lucky he was to have one parent, let alone three.

He hadn’t fallen asleep. He was close, though. He gave his hand a final squeeze as he dozed off. “ ‘M sorry... hope you can see them...” he mumbled as his body relaxed under the warmth and weight of the blanket.

They’d both lost their dad at 15, although in different ways, and for different reasons. Both lost someone important at a young age. The parallels probably would’ve sickened the hero a few months ago, Greyson knew. He buried his head in the pillow and hoped the nightmares had stopped.

There was a bittersweet smile on the man's lips- he glanced down at the limp hand in his, then turned back around to face Greyson. He watched the man for a few moments, and seeing as he seemed peaceful in his sleep, stood, picking up the garbage.

"...Me too." Marion replied softly. He stopped for one last second to move the book- the only one they hadn't taken back with the research, because it wasn't part of the research- to half slide it under Greyson's pillow for when he woke up, and then he left, running a hand through his hair with a deep sigh- the kind that fill your lungs and make you feel as if you've shed something. As he stepped back out onto the sidewalk, Marion reached into his pocket, and pulled out two little black hard drives. He stared down at them as he walked, and gave another sigh and returned them to their hiding place.

Well, it wasn't night yet. He could keep working.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	24. A Painting of a Blue Tree

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one’s long, and that’s only cause there’s no good place to cut the chapter off. This is definitely not a good chapter to stop on!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

He slept, wrapped in his new blanket. He didn’t wake up until ten the next day. The nurses didn’t try to wake him up. He needed the sleep.

The nightmares had stopped. The blanket felt like he was wrapped in someone’s arms, whether he’d known he needed that or not. No wonder he’d never been able to stop them by himself.

When he did wake up, he woke up alone. He pushed the warm blanket off his chest and yawned, sitting up. A small smile played on his face. This was so much better.

At some point, Greyson's dinner had been replaced with a breakfast, which sat on the table- a variety of cantaloupe, mango, grape, pineapple and strawberry pieces and an egg and bacon sandwich, topped off with a tumbler of juice- all hand food, all in plastic containers as the nurses still weren't letting him alone with anything near as dangerous as cutlery or glass. The book half wedged under his pillow was the first in the Inheritance Cycle series; it seemed Marion had remembered their earlier discussion. There was a note tucked into the front cover, reading in a large and scrawling print,

_ For the book nerd- _

_ Hope you slept well. I'm gonna be gone for a few days. _

_ There's baddies to catch, hands to shake, babies to kiss! _

_ Hope this is good to keep your mind occupied. _

_ When I get back I expect a thirty page book report. Haha! _

There was a break in the writing, as if he'd picked up a new pen later to write in a last thought,

_ Take care of yourself. -M. _

He broke into a huge grin as he read the note. He pushed the blanket off, standing and stretching, before going to sit at the desk.

He leaned with one elbow on the table, eating fruit with his fingers as he read. At this moment, he wasn’t Corvid. He was Greyson. He was a college student who woke up late on a free day and decided to spend it reading.

_ ”Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world...” _

Over the next few months or so, things managed to settle into some semblance of normalcy- at least, as normal as Marion's life got. The press coverage was still strong as ever but not suffocating once people began to go back to their lives after watching the attack and fallout with avid interest. He resumed his patrols and other regular things, and slowly began to train again, learning to work around the foreign pulls and twitches of a body that had been torn apart and put back together. Thankfully he had Alex for that- the healer was all too happy to rid his body of any traces of his time held hostage, starting with the ankle scar, which was fading slowly but surely after each painful session. He asked her to stay away from his chest for the time being, though.

His visits to Greyson were sporadic; the hero couldn't promise anything regular but he usually managed to show up twice or thrice a week, always bringing something along with him- a bag of clementines or a chocolate bar, another book, a brush for Greyson's hair, a tiny alarm clock, and better quality shampoo and conditioner after he'd found the dollar store brand in the bathroom, become suitably appalled at the ingredients list, and asked the other man what his favorite scents were.

Too, although it was a given, came along the broad smile and easy laughter and conversation; Marion seemed equally ready for light or soul-crushing topics usually, though as before he steered away from his own scars, which wasn't difficult because he assumed Greyson wasn't eager to talk about those two weeks either. The hard drives he'd managed to keep, slipped discretely out of the bag when no one was looking, he was still working through. Or, the first one at least. He couldn't bring himself to watch the contents of the second one, the one with the videos. Not if it really was what Greyson had said.

But the first one… he had quickly learned that Greyson had been doing a whole lot of things that went way over his head. And in the spirit of knowing what the ever living fuck the scientist was talking about in those audio clips half the time, he'd begun to look into genetic modification himself. And slowly, surely, Marion began to piece a couple things together. Keeping it all to himself was difficult- he began to think he'd have to broach the topic with the former villain again at some point. But for now… 

"Well, hey Grey. Fancy meeting you here," Marion greeted jokingly, coming in at some point after lunch and knocking on the glass as he went to put up the privacy blinds on the panel and mic- asking, like always, "Can I come in?"

He’d grinned and hugged him when he’d come back. His hair had been braided back, just a bit of stubble intentionally on his face. He more often than not listened to Marion speak, rather than speaking himself. There was nothing to talk about, other than that he’d finally convinced himself to start talking to the doctor.

He’d been told that Netflix wanted to write a documentary about him. He told them that he’d read the script, answer any questions, but he would only do so on paper. Pictures and video were taken of the cell and him from the cameras, but there was never a live interview. He didn’t want that kind of footage on him.

The little gifts were wonderful. Something sweet, trinkets (which he kept gathered on his desk,) things that were just meant to help him feel normal. He loved them all, and appreciated Marion a thousand times more every time he brought one.

His favorites were the paints. The little bottles of acrylic paints that Marion had left on his desk one day, and a notepad of paper the next. He’d saved the paper for something better, and used the paints on the walls. A massive tree covering an entire wall was what he’d made with them (he’d moved furniture around so the wall was empty.) Branches held different objects on them; one a mask, another a book. Pens and a laptop, and a crow sat on the very end. Feathers of a dozen colors and handprints in red. A dream catcher hanging from a lower branch, and threads completely tangling an upper one. A knife with its blade embedded in the trunk and gloves hanging from the fork right above it. The leaves were pale blue and gray and purple, instead of green. He’d kept it covered by the old blanket while he worked on it, so Marion couldn’t see. It had taken him the full month to finish it, and now he planned to show him.

His clothes were covered in paint- he’d asked to keep them, once he’d gotten paint on them the first time, and now he put the painted ones over top whenever he worked.

He ducked out from under the blanket hanging from the wall, where he’d been checking to see if everything was dry. He grinned. “Course. I wanna show you this today.”

"Il maestro finalmente mostra il sue lavoro! And here I thought you'd just decided on hanging a blanket from the wall to drive me mad with curiosity." The hero shrugged off his jacket and slung it over the chair, setting a paper bag down onto the desk. The last statement was decidedly not true; the man had caught on very quickly that something was happening under the blanket, and had asked no less than ten times if he was going to be allowed to see it. Through the bouts of back and forth conversation and the question game he'd kept up, he'd seemed happy that Greyson was finding a place to put his energy; a melancholic shade to the thought as Marion wondered what the man could have done for the world, with a different circumstance; a different life.

"I brought boba. Yours is the pink one," he added distractedly, trying to peer around the blanket.

He took the cup, taking a sip as he stood in front of the blanket. “You’ll see when I’m ready for you to see. Catch me up, first.” He leaned against it, smiling.

“What’s happened since that whole argument with Blue?” Blue was another hero, one that Greyson had despised with everything he had. He was an illusionist. He got into people’s heads, showed them things he wanted them to see, or things from their own memories. He could manipulate senses, and Greyson hated that he could see his memories. It was a rather powerful superpower, especially for a hero.

Marion gave an exaggerated groan of disappointment, "God _ dammit _ , just put me out of my misery," He said, digging out his own drink and trying to disguise the grin under a mock scowl. "I told him to get off my patrol territory and go back to Baltimore. He made me think there was a fly buzzing around my head for an entire press conference. Douche."

Marion flopped down onto the floor, propping his legs up on the cot like a kid on the phone at a slumber party, and took an awkward sip of his drink. "He's testing my limits. You're the mastermind; got any ideas of how I should put him in his place? New York is  _ my _ city," The man griped. More or less it was at least partially true; with heroes being assigned major cities or regions to protect based on population density. New York was protected jointly, primarily by Marion and then the other heroes from the surrounding cities on a rotation basis, plus the healers, tech savvies, and other behind-the-scene staff on the Hero Union.

“Trust me, you don’t want my advice. He did the same pissy things to me. Complain to the Union, maybe? They’ll force him to go back? Gods know New York doesn’t need that nosy son of a bitch.”

He sat down next to him, his legs crossed and his hands in his lap as he took another sip. “How’s your training coming along? Is Alex helping?” Sure, he didn’t like her, but if she was helping Marion, and he didn’t have to deal with her, then he was all for it.

"Nah. He cozied up to Luther a real long time ago. I'll just bear it for two more weeks and then he'll go home and I'll get someone else for the month. Bouya Girl is nice- you know, the one from Montreal I was telling you about. With elastic muscles. Besides, Blue does a good job. He's just a prick about everything else in the meantime." Marion shrugged. "The training....is going. My combat teacher wants me to have a few more sessions with Al before I can start martial arts again, but usually they leave me too sore to do anything but walk it off, I swear she's getting payback on me for some reason. So I had one last night, on my back and-"

He shifted to reach his arm up and tuck a stray strand of the blond hair behind Greyson's ear, with a little grin from where he was looking up at the other. "I've got full mobility in my shoulder again. Aren't you proud of me?" Marion had retained his penchant for the little touches here and there, once he'd realized that Grey liked them- or, his were little touches. He let the other initiate full-blown hugs or cuddling at will, for the most part. "How's the documentary going? Any new faces around here while I was gone?"

“He does do a good job, if you’re a hero. To us, he’s an absolute asshole. He only cares about his arrest count, not what happens to the villains. I watched him pin down a 16-year-old vigilante for taking someone in without a license. Like Gods, man, he’s helping you.” He sighed.

A smile quickly grew when he brushed his hair away. “Extremely proud. That’s good. That’s really good.” He took his hand, squeezing it. “What are you working on next?”

He swiftly forgot about his question when the documentary was brought up. “Well... It’s taking a bit. I got a letter addressed to “Mr. Corvid.” So that was fun. They don’t seem to get that I want them to go farther in about what happened with my father. I told them they could read the journals, if they could get them. We’ll see how it goes.”

Marion let a small expression of distaste slip by at the description. He'd expressed worry for the growing number of vigilantes before- being Marion, he preferred to go by the books, but he also didn't go out of his way to harass or restrain them like some other officiated heroes could and had even been known to spend a TV interview or two offering some tips for the kids 'who no one could convince otherwise' to help keep them safe.

"Keep working at it. It's good that they're at least trying to gain more insight on your perspective. Even if just for the view count," He mused. "But I doubt they'll be able to get those journals...the information department's been on lock-down mode for a while, staff working overtime, no outsiders allowed in, not even any of us from the other departments."

He paused, brow furrowing slightly. "That usually spells trouble. They're either onto something of the evidence they have to work on, and they're trying to figure out how they want to make it public, or they're tracking suspicious activity they want me to investigate....maybe even a new villain. I don't like it."

He swallowed. “I’m hoping they don’t translate my crypt. I don’t like what they could do with it...”

He stood up, ruffling his hair as he did. “You want to see the painting...?” He asked finally. He’d built up enough courage to show him, he thought. He hoped that he had enough courage. He reached up and unpinned one corner of the blanket, then the other. He pulled it down, draping it over his arm and revealing the mural of the tree.

He sat on the desk, watching his face. Hoping he didn’t judge him. Hoping he liked it, hoping that whatever he said next wasn’t horrible.

He bit his lip.

"If it makes you feel any better, I asked Al about it and she almost snapped my head off. Which means she's either in the dark too and pissed about it or they're having no luck." Marion let a little sigh escape; the subject of whether or not the NHU could be trusted was rocky for him, but he dropped it with a sudden smile and an affirmative hum as Greyson stood, playfully swatting his hand away from his head to try and fix the already rebellious black curls.

Marion's eyes swept over the mural, slow surprise mixing with the careful scrutiny. He kicked his feet off the bed and set his drink down, going to brush a hand gently over the painted trunk. His eyes lit up- not literally, but with a bright curiosity and a brighter smile that he couldn't bite back as he traced the branches, put his hand over one of the red prints, grinned up at the crow. "There's a story here," He said softly, turning back to Greyson. "All these things- they're telling a story. Aren't they? It looks like a beautiful one," He mused almost reverently, turning to reach up and gently touch the bird. "Is this… you?"

He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, his legs hanging off the desk. “The crow or the tree...?”

He sat back. “It’s a story if you’d like to see it that way. It’s me if you want to see it that way. It’s whatever you want to see it as.” He stared at the mural, at the snow covering one of the branches, and the fire burning another one. The flower lei and the little cactus, up at the top. It was something, that was for sure.

“I want a bucket of white paint. I want to paint over it all. I want to cover it all up in white paint.”

Marion snatched his hand back, the smile disappearing as he protested, "Why? Was it something I said? Grey, this is amazing; it took you all month, didn't it?"

“It’s not you, Marion. It’s nothing about you. Don’t worry.” He paused. “I want to cover it all in white paint.” He didn’t meet his eyes, his eyes on the painting instead. “I didn’t paint it for you or anyone else.”

He watched the man for another moment, then turned back to the painting, finally replying softly, "It's your choice, I suppose. I didn't...know you could paint this well at all. When did you learn?"

“I don’t know, really.” He murmured, standing up. “I don’t know that I ever learned.” He took a couple steps forward, twirling the hero’s hair. “I just... needed something to do.

"Right. Yet another natural talent you pull out of your sleeve because you need something to do to keep from going batshit," Marion laughed faintly, head tilting into the motion with familiar ease to keep his hair from tugging. "...Greeeey. Are you gonna do whatever it is you want to do to me or just stand there and play with my hair?"

He shook his head a bit, ruffling his hair again before he withdrew his hand. “No. No, I don’t think I will.” No matter how much he wanted it. He couldn’t. He turned and ran his hand over the mural.

"You know by now I don't bite," Marion gave him a quizzical look, "I hope. And you know I'm a supreme idiot, so I'll have to beg his Majesty's forgiveness for that but if you want a hug just come take it, Grey. Just take it," The hero spoke lightly, softly as he went back over to pick his half-finished boba up. "Oh, and if you don't finish your drink I will. Lychee's my second favorite flavor."

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	25. You Don’t Want Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Totally had to publish this chapter in quick succession cause it’s important. Definitely one of the parts I’ve re-read the most. Get ready. To die. You’re welcome!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

His lips probably tasted like tea. Sweet and sugary and perfect. He couldn’t have them. Marion was a hero. He was doing this out of moral obligation, that was it. He couldn’t have him. This want probably didn’t mean anything, anyway. Just a desperate desire for company, that’s all it was. “I know.” He mumbled.

Marion settled down on the cot, resting the dome-lidded cup on one knee as he regarded Grey with mild concern. "Okay," was the only reply. Marion wasn't prone to prying; especially when he knew Greyson had nowhere to run if he didn't want to answer whatever question was leveled his way. He simply rolled over onto his back with a last deep pull up through the wide mouthed straw, letting the curls- now hopelessly loosened from their updo- splay out a little on the pillow as he grabbed the latest book Greyson had been reading and opened it up to search for pictures or fantastical maps. He glanced back up at the younger man once or twice; let a tiny smile bloom again, and changed the subject, switching back into the questions he'd started asking almost a month ago and never seemed to run out of.

"Hey. Houseboat or tree-house? Which would you rather live on?"

“Tree house.” He sat next to him, playing with his hair, pulling it out of the gelled hairstyle it had been in. “A houseboat would be cool, though. Floating with nothing around you. Problem is- I can’t swim.” He shifted so he was lying on top of him, chest pressed to his. His weight was almost too much, almost overbearing. Almost. He set his chin on his sternum and tried not to think about the handprint under the fabric of his band shirt. He’d left his tea, forgotten, on the desk.

Sputtering a small laugh as his hair was ruined even further, he turned his face into the pillow a little, and shifted to make the weight a little more comfortable. "Really? … I can't whistle. For the life of me, I've tried and it's mortifying. How far away from New York have you been? Any big vacations?"

“I went to France for a while, for a rather exclusive microscope. Oh, I hope you didn’t destroy it. It was an expensive microscope. Powerful. Not that I payed for it.” He wanted to kiss him. He couldn’t. He wanted to.

"I wouldn't… remember. They all look the same to me anyway," he admitted sheepishly, "If I didn't the info department's got it now." He glanced down, as best as he could and put a hand up to brush his thumb lightly over the stubble on Greyson's jawline- "Your turn, cheater. Ask me a question."

His heart pounded against his chest, his mouth open slightly. His hand, his hand on his cheek. Touch was still fascinating, wonderful to him. “I… Can I kiss you?” He whispered.

Marion's chest suddenly constricted.

Pandora herself couldn't have released a bigger clusterfuck of jumbled thoughts into his head if her box was the size of a waterfall. Where had this come from? Had he been missing something? Had he been too obvious? He thought he'd been careful to control the way his heart hammered in his chest. He thought he'd looked away enough to prevent staring. Slammed brakes on too many trains of thought to lead to stations he knew better than to get off at. Goddammit, had he been touching Grey too much? He'd been fooling himself into thinking it was helpful for the man, but what if Marion was taking advantage still? What if Grey thought this was what he had to do to keep Marion around?

Marion knew full well what puppy love could do to a person's cognitive function. And yet it always seemed to sneak up on him still, because there was a ridiculously large part of him that felt like some tension had been released in him, like he'd been given something he was waiting for.  _ Can you kiss me? Hell fuckin' hallelu-yeah. _

_ You're a bastard, Marion. You're not gonna do this to him. _

_ 'Can I kiss you?' Yes. _

_ But- _

_ Yes. _

_ I can't- _

**_Yes._ **

_ "What," _ Marion choked out elegantly.

He froze, his expression still for just a moment. The pure want on his face was still there, but... not in his eyes. His eyes didn’t want. Not anymore, at least, if want had ever been there.

_ You don’t want me _ .

The thought covered his mind like a stamp over a book page. The rest was still there, but it was blotted out.

_ You don’t want me _ .

He knew that. He knew that his ‘love’, if that was what it was, was foolish. Fake. It wasn’t want for him, it was want for company.

_ You don’t want me _ .

He sat back suddenly, pushing himself off him, then off the bed. His legs didn’t seem to want to hold him up. He stumbled to the desk, supporting himself on it. He couldn’t choke anything out.

_ You don’t want me _

“You don’t want me.”

The literal weight off his chest put Marion off kilter; his hand fell back to his side for a shocked second before he sat up, throwing his feet back to the floor. Shit.  _ Shit. _

"Shit. No, Grey, no, it's not like that. It's not like that at all, it's-"  _ every time I touch you it's like diving into an ocean. _ "I just didn't expect you to-"  _ ask like this? What did you expect? You shouldn't have been even thinking about wanting him. _ "To want me that way and- there's… a lot. There's a lot."

He held up his hands like he was approaching a wild animal, slowly standing up. "Grey, I didn't say I don't want you. Did you hear me say that?"

“No… you meant it, though. You don’t want me.” He stepped back, still clinging to the desk

_ Stupid, this was stupid, he was so, so stupid! Of course he didn’t want him. Of course, of course. Why had he had ever thought that he would? _

“Don’t call me Grey. Don’t touch me.  **_Don’t touch me_ ** .”

He whimpered. He couldn’t help it. He was scared. So, so scared. And… heartbroken. The emotion wasn’t centered in one spot, like all the rest. Heartbreak was in his bone marrow, in each and every bone. It made his fingers tingle and his ribs ache and his spine bend. Heartbreak. He didn’t know it, yet, but he would look back and know it was heartbreak.

“Get out. I can’t look at you right now.”

Marion, for all the world, looked like a kicked puppy; he stared at Grey, mouth slightly agape until the words finished processing, "Whoa, whoa whoa whoa. Hold on a second. I just said 'what'! I just said one word, you can't know what I meant!"

He took a step closer, pulled in by the whimper because he'd just become so used, in such a short amount of time, to coming to Greyson's side confident he could provide comfort. "Look- I'm sorry, it just caught me off guard and I overreacted. We can talk, you don't have to be scared. I want to know what you mean-"

“But you don’t want me.” His fists clenched against the desk. “No, no of course not... why would you... why would you want me...? You’re a hero. You’re perfect, and probably straight... why would you want me...?” He pushed himself away. He felt dizzy. “Get out. I can’t listen to you right now.”

"That's  _ not _ what I  _ said- _ " Marion broke off with a frustrated noise, having to bite back a face of indigence at the 'probably straight'. "Since when the fuck- Grey, even if I said yes right off the bat that's not how this works! You can't just push me away, if you choose to say that type of thing it's an 'us' problem and I'm  _ willing _ to work through that with you. Please--"

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it. It was an impulse. Shouldn’t have asked...” he mumbled, leaning against the desk. “I’m not willing to. Not right now. I need a minute. Marion, I need a second. Give me a second... I... give me a second. Please...” he leaned over the desk. “I’m sorry...”

Marion stayed still for a second- still and silent, like if he was quiet enough, he could slip under the heavy tangle of- well, everything. Searched Greyson's posture, Greyson's words for something. And then he nodded; sighed, edged backwards a little. "Yes- yes, if that's what you want."

And he picked his boba up off the floor, took another long look at the painting in case it was gone by the time he got back- and he turned and left the room. Wheeled on his heel and marched out like he was storming the gates of hell to fight a legion with a plastic fork.

He berated himself all the way outside for not asking how long 'a second' was.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	26. Ice Skating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay here’s your break. These boys get up to some really serious shit in the next chapter so I hope you’re ready. Comments are much appreciated! Seriously! I love comments!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough! 
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He stumbled back to his bed once he was gone, tucking himself under the warm, weighted blanket. It had always felt so comforting... why shouldn’t it help now?

He clung to a pillow, his eyes clenched shut. He needed him. He shouldn’t have said that.

_ He’s trying not to hurt my feelings. He just wants this for his record. He’s going to hate me. He’s straight. _

The thoughts that ran through his head were far from rational or sane. The blanket wasn’t helping. The heartbreak still coursed through him, and all the blanket was doing was making it harder to breath. He sat up, leaning against the wall. He didn’t know what he’d do when he came back. What he’d say.

Stopping outside the building, staring up at the sky with a sense of regret- Marion almost laughed at how unfortunate it was that this was getting to be such a familiar habit of his. He was still confused, of course. Maybe even a little angry. He didn't see how this could possibly have been fair for either of them.

But, as with many things, Marion resolved that a little space and a little time might do better to heal than the words coming out of a jumbled, grief laden mind.

That still didn't take away any of the current emotion. Mutely, he checked his watch. He was supposed to be on call until ten tonight. Technically Marion was on duty every waking minute, even if his cell had to be called to force him awake for an emergency but… as much as he hated to admit it, he knew he could rest a little easier knowing that Blue was in the area. The illusionist ran things with an iron fist and a dictator's mercy, but he ran them. And he was going to have to do it alone for the rest of the day, because Marion needed to take his mind off a few things.

He didn't turn his mind back to what had happened until he'd checked into the ice-skating rink. Not until he'd pushed his hair back under a beanie and changed and slipped unassumingly into the building with his figure blades and paid his entry fare. He was Marion here, not Euclidi. He was the thirteen year old kid again, sitting out on his dad's apartment fire escape with rock spilling out of the radio in the background while he frantically finished his homework so he could go skating for an hour or two before they closed. Before the cancer. Before college. Before the NHU, or Greyson, or two weeks held hostage.

God, he'd missed this place.

And with the cool air from the frozen surface slicing past his face as he circled the huge and nearly empty court, he finally began to calm down and think. And the first thing he thought was that we would have loved to bring Greyson along with him. The blond would have looked so cute, he had to assume, skating for the first time. Maybe he'd even have to hold onto Marion's arm to keep his balance.

"Fuck," Marion hissed quietly under his breath, eliciting a glare from a mother passing by with her flailing toddlers. He had it bad for the former villain, now that he stopped to focus on that. This  _ really _ wasn't fair.

He wondered when he’d come back. He hoped he’d be back soon. He wanted to apologize to him. He wanted to explain himself, explain that he knew that this must’ve been a false love, that he didn’t really want him. He didn’t know what was wrong with him, although he desperately did. He desperately wanted to know what was going on, what this was.

He wanted to know what a kiss felt like, too.

He wanted to know what it felt like to wake up next to someone, chests and bodies pressed together, with no shame and no fear. He wanted to know what it felt like to kiss in the shower and while brushing teeth and making breakfast. He wanted to know what it was like to be loved as much as he loved.

That wasn’t going to happen. He’d never get out of here, never have a lover and an apartment upstate. Not while wanting Marion so badly. He’d never be able to love anyone else, he was certain of it.

He was going through all the emotions a teenager would, loving for the first time. He was foolish and naive. He’d never done this, after all. This wasn’t how he’d thought it would happen.

He closed his eyes and pictured him. Perhaps he was in the viewing room, or on the steps, or somewhere else entirely. It occurred to him that he might not come back, ever. Or maybe for a few days. Or weeks.

He felt sick.

The man closed his eyes, feeling the weight bearing down into the soles of his feel, the way he rocked minutely on the thin blades as he flipped to skate backwards. He took in a quiet breath and focused on that, the steady swish of the ice and the way the world lurched as he allowed his feet to fall into a spin. He couldn't pirouette as quickly or steadily as he'd used to when he was taking lessons, skating as often as possible. He resolved to fix that.

All too well, he was starting to realize how he must have been coming across to Greyson. He'd said before that he couldn't touch anyone. He'd told Marion that he'd spent so many years in hiding, and then moved directly to living by himself. At fifteen. Where would he have found room for all the firsts? Where would there have been a place for the past loves? Greyson hadn't gotten to  _ have _ any of that, and then Marion had come along, while the man was trapped in a room with nowhere to go and nobody else who made time out of their day for him. Of course. Of  _ course _ . Marion was stupid not to have recognized the signs. And now he'd gone too far, too fast, with the fragile heart of a man who was desperately trying to figure out what it meant to live even the resemblance of a healthy life.

He supposed that he’d taken things for granted. Marion was grateful when he thought about it, about his childhood, the opportunities he’d had. His parents, his friends and- well, he remembered his first make-out session. He was grateful for the experiences in love he’d had growing up because it had made him who he was, but he didn’t really think about what it was like for someone who didn’t have that.

Marion sighed, groaned aloud as he stepped out of the rink. Went off to find the building's locker rooms for a lukewarm, fifty cent shower. He wasn’t good with words. He’d proven that. But somehow, he had to figure out how to explain himself to Greyson… actually, they had a lot to talk about. All while ignoring the hormonal pre-teen monstrosity inside him that was telling him that if he’d just ignored the long-term effects, and played his cards differently, he could probably have had the blond pinned up against a wall right now, tasting Lychee boba on his tongue.

_ ’Probably straight’, my ass. _

But if there was one thing Marion knew for sure, it was that he wanted to do right by the other man. Past be damned.

Marion didn’t return to the cell for maybe four days or so. It probably would have taken a lot longer than that to sort things out, but he had the feeling leaving Grey alone for so long already wasn’t good. He was greeted by a slightly anxious nurse coming in, who looked relieved to see him though she didn’t say much. He was in his hero gear, which meant he’d come directly from work. Holding a lumpy swatch of brown paper in his hands, he showed up to the window like always, hand hovering for a few seconds before he worked up the courage to knock softly, twice.

“...Guess who.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	27. Flowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, get ready for some real shit in the next chapter. I hope you’re all ready to meet Corvid :)
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki
> 
> *this chapter is edited

Greyson was curled up on his bed, the blanket tucked over him and his back to the window. His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t asleep. He was horribly exhausted, gods-awful tired, but that couldn’t be solved by sleeping. That was a different kind of tired. His food from noon that day sat untouched on the desk.

His sleep had been nightmare-ridden again, and his showers long and silent, even though his hair never seemed to get washed.

He didn’t eat unless it was forced. The bucket of white paint he'd asked for sat in the corner, but he hadn’t used it to cover the mural. If he looked closely, there was a new addition to the branches, up at the top: Marion’s visor.

He’d had a lot of time alone with his thoughts, which certainly wasn’t a good thing. Every hour that passed made him think more and more that Marion hated him, for good this time. Every second he was more certain that he’d never see him again, that Marion would stop defending him, that he would rot here.

The sound of his voice was both horrifying and relieving. He wasn’t gone. Or maybe he just came to say goodbye...

Nevertheless, he sat up when he heard him knock. Crossed his legs, sat his hands in his lap, and nodded a bit. He wanted him. Even if it was just to say goodbye.

“Hi, Marion...”

"Hi, yourself."

It was light, and careful, like he was trying to tread sand without leaving a footprint. Marion set his things down except for the parcel, which he carried with him into the room. He regarded the other man for a second, heart squeezing at the resigned despondency in his tone and posture. Marion slowly lowered himself to kneeling in front of the cot, in front of Greyson, and he lay the string tied parcel in his lap, nodding towards it. "Open up," he encouraged with a tiny smile.

He pulled the tie open, tugging the paper back. His expression was blank, his eyes empty. He could see Marion out of the corner of his eye, could see the smile. It only made him feel sicker.

The hero settled back on his knees, leaning an elbow against the cot lightly. "What are you thinking?" He asked, gently as always with the blue eyes peering up at the hollow heterochromia.

The paper spread apart easily after the string was pulled; a little bouquet of flowers resting in the crinkled brown. White poppies and rosebuds surrounding rich clusters of lilacs, dotted all over with tiny blue forget-me-nots and surrounded in a wreath of some polished wooden branches- tied together with a navy ribbon.

“I... What am I thinking? What does this mean, Marion?” He looked up at him. “Are-are these, like, first date flowers or farewell flowers? Are you trying to apologize?” His brow was furrowed, tears giving his eyes a sheen.

“I don’t understand... You don’t want me... what are you doing? I don’t get it...”

He wrapped his arms around himself. “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I do this right? Why can’t I read you? I’ve always been able to read you, I can’t read you... what’s wrong with me...?”

Marion let his eyes flicker over the man's face while he talked, brows tightening together, "Okay, full stop right there." He shook his head firmly, "There is _nothing_ wrong with you. You're _confused_ , lost, maybe a little bereft… none of that means there's something wrong with you. It means we- I- haven't done as good a job communicating as you obviously needed me to. So to make it clear, these aren't answer flowers. They're not yes flowers or no flowers or date flowers or- forbid it- goodbye flowers. You guessed it third. They're apology flowers. 'Please don't kick me out again before I can explain myself to you' flowers. And maybe there's a little something else in there."

He huffed a little, more the sentiment of a laugh than an actual one, and there was still seriousness to the tone. "You couldn't read me because I apparently had been giving mixed signals. So to make it clear, my answer is just… wait. Wait. And I am more than happy to tell you why in a moment but I have to ask, first… when you wanted to kiss me… I think we both know you were asking for more than a kiss. I have a theory as to what that was, if you'd like to hear it. But what did you want, Greyson? Really?"

He scoffed. “That’s a lie… if there was nothing wrong with me, I wouldn’t have been a villain, and I wouldn’t be in here...”

“What is there to explain? I get it, Marion. I get why you don’t want me. You’re a hero. Poster-boy perfect model hero. Why would you want me?”

“I know that I’m confused… I can’t tell if I want you or I just want you to stay… I don’t know if this is some twisted version of Stockholm syndrome. Just- forget I said anything. It was a dumb question. I should’ve just kept it to myself.”

He sat back against the wall, his throat sore with tears that hadn’t come yet. What kind of life was this? What was this worth? This was nothing. This was pain, never-ending and complete. And he couldn’t tell if Marion was making it better or worse.

Letting his eyes close for moment, Marion tilted his head back to the ceiling and took a deep breath. "I am not. Perfect. I made a really, really huge mistake, you know. I made an assumption. I thought that by being here, by showing up, I could prove to you that I've... forgiven you. I thought that you knew I'd forgiven you for all the pain. All the scars, the sleepless nights- everything. Everything."

"I asked you to apologize. And I listened while you did, truly, over and over again. And I didn't _tell_ you that you are forgiven. So of course you're scared. Of course you still thought that I could turn on a dime and hate you, or leave you or- hurt you, even. You saw that first, and I didn't. Neither of us really understood this whole time where we stood with each other. I didn't see that. I fucked up."

He bit his lip, added softly. "It wasn't a dumb question. You just got a dumb answer. From a dumb guy who's done a horrible job of telling you that I've wanted you all along. Wanted you like… a ridiculously long time."

He let out a sob, falling forward so his forehead was pressed against the bed. “I don’t care that you aren’t perfect! I don’t care if you forgive me or not!”

“To me, Marion, you’re the hero! The perfect role model. The comic star on cereal boxes and ads and shit. The one who saves the day...”

“You have every right not to want me. You have every right to scream and yell and hit me, and to never forgive me. Ever. Don’t you dare say it was your. Fucking. Fault.”

Greyson's fist flew forward, seemingly of its own volition. Like a knee-jerk reaction, like... someone else was controlling it. 

“I don’t want to want you… I don’t want you to want me. I just-“ The door slammed open.

Security guards.

With guns.

Greyson’s eyes widened as a dart hit him in the center of his throat, and Marion was dragged out before he had time to react. He’d fucked up. “No, no- Wait!” He cried before the sedative in the dart set in, and he passed out.

Marion had raised his head up, a minute expression of alarm at Greyson's voice, at his action. He'd stood up to help, to reach out, to do _something_ to stop the man from hurting himself- and suddenly there were others in the room. The man barely had time to throw up his mask, barely had time to process it before he was being dragged out, two strong sets of arms wrapped around his.

With a shout, Marion threw the men off him- felt a bit of remorse at the way one of the guards stumbled back. But that was a pale shadow in comparison to the rest. "What- the fuck-!? What do you think you're doing?"

The guards quickly recovered. “Sir, we can’t have you in the room with a man who could possibly hurt you. Please step out.” One made a move to grab him again, although he was hesitant. “We were given orders to remove you at the first sign of trouble.”

The hero twisted out of the way easily; stepping aside to bat off the arm that reached for him. They'd pulled him out of the room too quickly for him to react to the force but he didn't look like he was willing to be taken anywhere else, stepping back to look through the window, look to Greyson's form to make sure he was okay. His voice was tight, low. "By _who_?"

“President Luther, sir. And that girl that came with him made sure we understood...” Greyson was limp, having fallen and slumped against the wall. His eyes were shut. “The sedative won’t last long. We can’t allow you back in there. Not until he’s proven himself safe.”

The words hit Marion like a string of fish hooks, sharp and nagging. His jaw clenched as he held back a retort. After a long, long few seconds, the man stepped back from the panel. "Get one of his nurses, and tell them to make sure he's… comfortable," the hero said slowly, pulling out his cell phone. "They'll know how to handle it. Call me back when he wakes up."

One nodded and stepped out, while the other stayed by his side. “It won’t be longer than twenty minutes. It’s not a strong sedative.”

The guard came back with a nurse, who quickly rushed in to adjust him, placing a bandaid over the puncture mark and checking his arms and neck for any nail marks.

He barely managed to give the man a nod of thanks and a little smile, stepping away closer to the controls to dim the lights. It felt right- like that was giving the man inside more privacy even though he couldn't bring himself to turn the panel off. Couldn't tear his eyes off the slumped figure.

Alex picked up on the second ring, and he spoke before she had a chance to finish saying hello. "You _know_ he can't hurt me. What the fuck are you doing?"

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	28. This Is Worse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meet... CORVID! I hope I explained the way Grey’s mind works well enough! There’s fluff soon, I swear. Just gotta survive some torture first.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki
> 
> *this chapter is edited

The woman stayed silent for a moment, and when her voice came through she sounded amused. "Uh-oh. Looks like someone's favorite super-villain went and threw a hissy fit again." Marion thought he could feel the muscles in his own jaw start to ache for how hard he clenched back the curse. "He was hurting _himself!_ He didn't need to be tranqued like a fucking wild animal! Alex, what is this, you of all people know he can't hurt me!"

She sighed, voice going flat. "Yeah, but I also know he already has hurt you." 

"Why does that keep coming up!!? I am _fucking fine-_ " Marion broke himself off, glanced over at the guard, lowered his voice. "I am fine and I am trying to handle things carefully and I don't need you and Luther getting in the way. I appreciate your help but-"

"You're clearly far from fine, kid. You've been out of it ever since your last visit to the facility-"

"You're not qualified to tell me whether or not I-"

"Then you sure as hell aren't, Marion!" Alex's voice finally turned biting. "I am a fucking doctor, and I am worried about you. And the kid too, if it makes you like, even the slightest bit more willing to listen to me. You've been defending the guy like you're his fucking guard dog ever since you got your hands on his warden title. You think that's normal? And I'm willing to bet even he knows it now."

Marion ran a hand through his hair; glanced back through the window. Alex's voice rang hollow in his ear. "I didn't make the decision to put guards around the room, buddy. Or to have them pull you at the first sign of trouble. That was all Luther. But to be perfectly honest, I agree with the guy for once. You need to step back. Possibly permanently."

"...you know I can't do that," Marion whispered, pain ebbing into his tone.

"Yep," Alex popped her p, laughed nonchalantly from the other end of the line, "Which is why we've gotta be around to do it for you- if things get too out of hand. Look- I'll talk to you tonight. Swing by the office, we can grab a coffee. Spend a romantic evening poring over the Wikipedia page for Lima Syndrome."

Marion stayed silent until the phone went dead. Slowly lowered it from his ear with the taste of bile and regret stinging the back of his tongue. He sat down slowly, into the office chair, eternally glad once again that he had a mask to cover the way he couldn't tear his eyes off the figure on the cot while he waited for him to wake up.

It took what felt like forever for Greyson to wake up. He shifted on top of the blanket, rolling onto his side, face mostly buried against the pillows. He lifted himself onto one elbow, still mostly bent over so Marion couldn’t see his face.

Greyson slammed his fist into the cot, the whole thing creaking as he did. He was still for a moment, fist pressed against the bed. And then he did it again. And again and again and again. He didn’t seem to know or care that Marion was watching.

It was only when he started writhing on the cot, his nails digging into his collar bone and all the way up to his scalp, that the guards intervened. He stopped as the door opened, turning to lie on his side facing them. His wrists were jerked forward, cuffs fastened to them, then to the bedpost. It was only when they did this that he looked at Marion.

It was fury and fear and sorrow all at once. It was wide eyes and gritted teeth and a head tilted up. It was kicking at the guard and leaning against him at the same time. He gave an experimental pull on the cuffs, before finally crossing his legs and pressing his forehead to the wall.

“Hate you.” He mumbled. “I hate you. **_So_ **much.” His eyes were closed as he flexed his fingers.

And… there was something about the way he said it. The way he looked was no different than he always did, and yet it was impossibly so.

This wasn’t Greyson. Not the way Marion had grown to know him in the last month or so. There was something... Off. Like he'd flipped a switched and turned into someone else.

This man could press a burning palm to his chest and laugh. This man could mutilate him with a smile on his face that reached his eyes, too. This man was the one that deserved to be in here.

The man chained to the bed here, a soft smile on his face,

Was Corvid.

There was fear drowning out his thoughts.

Fear, and something sharper, adrenaline maybe, punching through his veins in short, sharp bursts, squeezing his core, making it burn- the blank, dumb, white-out fear of a cornered prey animal. He remembered it, he remembered now… from not so long ago.

_Please, no. Please, no, no._

_I'll let you do anything. I'll let you do it all again. Please, no._

It was a quiet voice in his mind, quiet and terrorized. He didn't know what it was begging for.

Marion didn't realize he was clutching onto his chest until he felt his fingernails scratch the skin through his shirt. Didn't realize he was clutching on where a darkened patch of skin covered his heart, and when he did and let it go, it was only to cling onto himself. Arms wrapped around his stomach, almost doubled over, he gasped quietly, like the wind had been knocked out of him. One of the guards was speaking to him; he ignored the cautious voice and the hand on his shoulder. Clenched his eyes shut. Concentrated.

Oh, they'd played this game already. He remembered now.

"Yeah, I've heard that one before."

It was choked, and it was weary. Human, and broken, and smiling. "In case you'd forgotten," he straightened up, hands still hugging himself. "It's never really stopped me."

He looked up. Opened his eyes and leaned against the wall, grinning at him. The smile wasn't real. A mask, to substitute the one taken from him. “Euclidi… oh, Euclidi. Are you scared? Even after you tore my powers away? Even after you left me here to rot? Are you still so scared?” He snapped.

“Oh, how are those marks looking? Are they as pretty as they were when I gave you them?”

“Come in here. Don’t just cower behind the glass like the pathetic coward you are. Come in here. Take the cuffs off and give me a blade, I’ll carve Greyson’s name into your back. In big, bold letters. So you won’t be able to forgive him this time. You won’t be able to forget when he begs to kiss you like the pathetic brat he is.” He was rambling- it was obvious. It was see-through. It was the only wall he had the materials to build, and so he built it. He locked himself in side.  
  
Or, rather, locked Marion out. Tried to. 

He leaned back, his back and arms ridged as he pulled on the cuffs, which left red indents in his wrists. “You’ll never be able to come in here again!” He spat. “You’ll abandon him! You’ll make him hate you!” He laid down on his back, as much as he could. His head tilted to the side. “And when we get out… when _I_ get out… you’ll regret ever coming in the first place.”

The man shook his head- slowly, like he was trying to shake the voice out of his ears, he covered them, clenched his arms against his head. "No. I'm never letting you hurt me like that again. That's not what you want. This isn't what you want."

“You think I don’t? You think I don’t, when this is worse than _anything_ I _ever_ did to you?” He spat. “I’ll trace that handprint with the tip of a knife. It’ll show under your shirt, especially tight ones. Ooh, and I can touch you now, can’t I~?”

Marion nodded. Once, head sagging as he took a step forwards like- well, like a marionette doll. "Yes. You can."

It was desire, then. Pure, unadulterated desire. It blindsided the hero- wiped his mind.

 _It never mattered to you, did it? What_ **_he_ ** _wanted? What he needed? You were never selfless. This was never about him, it was about_ **_you_ ** _._

The voice inside his head was ugly, and he'd never heard it before. It made him flinch, even as his hand rose to the cool plane of the window. His head was still bowed.

_You don't care if he needs better. You wanted this all along._

_And yet you had the gall to think he was the sick one. You thought he was bad? You're fucking_ **_demented_ ** _._

"You're right--" Marion's body heaved- his head pitching forwards until he was pressed against the glass. It was a sob, raw, stark, and shattered. "You're right. This is worse, I've been torturing you. I had so much I wanted to say- but it was all for me. You never needed me. You didn't need my forgiveness," he cried softly, "I'm sorry, I-I, I'm so sorry. I needed you more. I've always needed you more. I can't leave you, please, _please--"_

“Come in here, Euclidi. You can hold the guards back. Come in here and take the cuffs off, and I’ll give you whatever you want. Doesn’t that sound nice? You want a kiss, you can have it. You want my hands on you, then you’ll have them. You can have me, Marion, if you take the cuffs off.”

His voice was so sweet, so sickly sweet. The voice of a man faking emotions he didn’t feel.

Greyson and Corvid were... not the same. They were separate in his head. But Greyson had no way of knowing that wasn't _normal._

Greyson had been triggered, pushed beyond his limits, and so Corvid was present. Protecting, Corvid was there to protect him. His way of that was hardly traditional, to say the least.

Oh, Gods, Corvid hadn’t shown up unintentionally for almost a year now. Greyson hadn’t ever been scared enough.

Marion's throat bobbed; he swallowed dryly, looked up with his forearms pressed against the pane. He couldn't see through it for a moment, because his own visor was shining too brightly against the polished surface. Oh, right. The guards. The ones Alex and Luther had sent to _protect_ him.

He looked to the side, and his eyes widened. One of them was gone, and the other was barricading the exit door with his body. Something shocked, something fearful was in the person's eyes, but Marion didn't see that past the barrel of the gun pointed at him. It was trembling slightly.

"Shit," the guard hissed quietly, when the hero's attention was on him. "Shit," And he pulled the trigger. The tranquilizer dart was set to release its serum on impact; it never made it to the super's neck. Behind the visor, Euclidi narrowed his eyes. And the projectile disintegrated. Just turned into a tiny cloud of dust and liquid that splattered to the floor. The man barely had time to step back before Marion's fist was around the weapon, and it bent like it was an aluminum pop can under his hands. _"Get out. Now,"_ he hissed, and he didn't even recognize his own voice. The soldier's face was pale; he stumbled back, turning and fleeing the room with one hand pawing at the walkie-talkie at his belt.

Marion took a step or two backwards, until his hands pressed against the door. Fumbled through it, and raced to the prisoner's side, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I knew this place was terrible for you. I knew it wouldn't help, I knew you were worse off here and I didn't do anything," he chanted quietly, like a sinner at the altar as he reached for the cuffs.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of the chapters I really wanted to edit. As you can probably see (if you're reading it at the time I'm writing) I've skipped to this chapter for editing first. I feel I've horribly misrepresented DID here. I severely apologize. 
> 
> I've hopefully fixed that. I also feel the need to say that Corvid does have a name, and that he will have a character arc. He's more than a villain. Thank you. 
> 
> -Loki


	29. Heavens Forgive Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mari can fly. Surprise! Shit goes down again. A lot of shit goes down in most of the chapters, lol
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough! 
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

He watched him as he dealt with the guard, hiding his smirk with a fearful look. He tugged on the cuffs as he stepped in, tilting his head up. “Marion...” he whimpered.

Corvid allowed him to take the cuffs off, rubbing the red marks that were left by them. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “Thank you.” He mumbled. “Get me out of here. Take me to an apartment upstate, be the lover I’ve always wanted.” He took his hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of his palm, then pressing his lips to it. “Make the pain go away...”

Tiny droplets of blood stained his shirt, from where he’d been hit with the dart. “You’re so much stronger than I ever was. You could breeze past them. No one could stop you.” He cupped his cheek. “We could run away together.” He smiled. “Gods, we could run away together...”

Marion turned into the touch- in a way that made it feel like he'd been tugged. His voice was frightened, wavering, "But I don't  _ have _ an apartment upstate, that was supposed to come later! The Union gave me my house! There's only one place I can think of you'd be safe-"

He froze; his head jerking as a sound emanated from outside, the sounds of shouting from beyond the room. The hero shook his head, and the hand that had held onto the other man's was wrenched away. "No," Marion whispered, and there was a pleading tint to it. "No, this is all wrong. It wasn't supposed to happen like this. I-I can't leave them. I can't betray my friends, I have to-I have to--I needed more  _ time, I need time to think--" _

“Marion.” He begged. “We’ve only got one shot- can’t you hear them? They’re never going to let you see me after this, if we don’t go now. Wherever it is, take me there. Get me out of here.” He reached for his hand. “Please, Marion. I beg of you...”

“We can figure it out. You’re so powerful, Marion. You’re so clever. Can’t we do this? Together? Can’t we work together?” He stood, cupping his cheeks. “They’re going to take you away, too… they’ll take you away from me… don’t leave me alone, Marion. You can do this.”

“It’s so quiet when you’re not here… you’re my whole world. You’re everything I have. I don’t want to lose you.”

The man was shaking his head- or he thought he was. Shaking his head, trying to back away, but his body froze on it's own. He stayed, he stilled, and tears slipped down his cheeks, slipping into the crease between his skin and his captor's hands. There was a buzzing in his head that drowned out the frantic pleas, the desperate voice of reason,  _ no, no, nononononono-- _

Another shout, and the far door crashed open. Marion flinched, and like vices his hands shot out to pull Greyson into his side- a fierce, protective grip that tugged the man's head into his shoulder and pulled their chests against each other's.

The ugly voice was back.  _ Your fault. Your fault your fault this is all your fault do something do something  _ **_do something now--_ **

"Heavens forgive me," Marion gasped, " _ Someone _ forgive me," He backed away until he hit the far wall. The mural Greyson had painted was cast into shadow in the dim light, and those lights began to flicker overhead. He saw blurry faces through his visor, through his tears and through the window, someone rushing for the control panel. He reached out, pressed his palm flat against the wall.

The metal shrieked, his eyes flared brightly. The wall behind them pushed outward with an explosive force, and there was wind, suddenly, rising about them, filling the room, destroying the trinkets and pushing the cot away. It whirled under them, under the superhuman's powers, and there was no ground beneath their feet anymore. Marion had shoved straight through the opposite wall in one single shove, and now he held them aloft, gripping tightly onto the man as he flew out, away, anywhere but the cell.

The last thing he saw of it was Alex bursting into the room, her wide eyes and the way she rushed to the hole in the side of the building. He met gazes with her for a fleeting second, saw his name formed on her lips. Then she was gone. Just a tiny glimpse of the facility, all dreary gray stone and industrial pipes, shrinking away out of sight- and then nothing but the rush of wind in his ears, as he fled, no more than a dark streak across the night sky.

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	30. To Rome, Maybe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be honest, I’m not super happy with this chapter but whatever. Apparently 200 people were interested enough in this to check it out. Thank you all! Even if you don’t like the story, your hits still count :) 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He yelped and clung to him, his face buried in his chest.

It had worked.

His plan had worked.

Marion was in love with him, or at least felt guilty enough to break him out. Oh, and with such a powerful ally on his side… 

He was unstoppable.

He squeezed his eyes shut, legs wrapped around his hips, face buried in his chest. He didn’t open them until they were far, far away. He laughed a bit, his lips pressed against Marion’s ear. “Kiss me, Euclidi. Kiss me so he doesn’t get to feel his first one.”

He held onto him, arms looped around his neck.

“Kiss me in the sky, in the clouds. Take me away from here.”

Under different circumstances, Greyson would’ve loved this.

And the stars… 

They were so pretty. So bright. He tilted his head back as they glided under them.

He needed a plan. He hadn’t thought he’d make it this far. Greyson could screw it up- he could switch, and Greyson would beg to be taken back, and undo all his hard work. He could deal with the headaches that happened when he kept back the switches.

“I love you, Marion.”

That wasn’t Greyson’s voice.

Flying was one of the first tricks he'd picked up. It was what he'd learned, after he learned how not to destroy anything he'd touched- how a reckless, bare-footed, sun-kissed farm boy had saved himself from falling out of trees or off barn roofs or from bedroom windows. It was how he'd made his siblings laugh, whipping up the wind until it plucked them off the ground and whirled them playfully around like they were so many giggling autumn leaves. How he'd rescued terrified kittens from plunges of doom off the boughs of the old aspen tree in the backyard.

Marion had never flown this high before. He hadn't needed to Hadn't wanted to; the  _ people _ were down on earth. It was cold up there, past the skyline, past the clouds. Cold, when he slowed. They were still moving, but he'd closed his eyes. They were drifting above the clouds, and the almost full moon above them was reflecting off the white water, throwing the whole sky into a pale, heavenly glow. The stars were shimmering above. Every once in a while, the clouds beneath them would part, and reveal the whole city laid out like a miniature lights show. New York glittered beneath. It was eternal, and beautiful.

But Marion's eyes were closed. "I don't believe you," he replied blandly, and though the voice still hitched, there was some tone of obstinacy to it. The air was thinner, up so high, and it was stealing his breath away, and putting a red flush into his cheeks as he tightly held the other man. Pulled him close, and buried his face into his neck. "And I don't care," He whispered, pushing a soft, and warm and tear stained kiss to the pulse point on his neck. "So say it again," He demanded, "Until I do."

He looked up at the sky, then down at the city below.

_ Take that.  _ He thought. _ I have your hero and he loves me and you will never be able to follow us up here. I’m free. _

He wrapped his arms around his shoulders, tilting his head back and staring up at the sky as his throat was kissed. “I do.” He mumbled. “I do love you. You’re my world, my everything. You have been- since we started fighting. You held my attention in ways I wished you hadn’t. I wanted you long before I begged for a kiss, love...” he carded through his hair. Oh, how he could fake emotions.

It was cold up here. Far colder than it had been in the cell. He had no fire anymore, and he couldn’t do anything to help him. Couldn’t take his shirt off to give to him- that would expose the scars.

“I love you. I love you more than I think I’ve ever loved anything before, and that scared me. It scares me that you mean so much...”

The human shook his head weakly, shook against his neck. He kissed Greyson again, on his neck, on his throat, on his jawline, nuzzled down to kiss his collarbone and he collapsed into the embrace, dry sobbing against the other's neck because the ice cold breeze was taking away his tears. "Shut up. Shut the fuck up," he whispered, "I wanted you t-to- to love me for real. I wanted you to know what real love feels like, what it means to be so deliriously in love you can barely breathe. I wanted to kiss you so hard you saw the stars anyway, I wanted you to feel safe in my arms. I wanted you so much, I messed it all up and now you'll never be happy. You don't love me, I'm worse than you cause I let you win."

“Marion...” he set one hand on his back, the other on his hair. “I’m… sorry… I’m sorry I can’t love you the way you want me to, the way you love me. I’m sorry it’s not as easy to fix me as you thought it would be... I’m sorry-“ he cut himself off, kissing his forehead and temples and cheeks. “I’ve got you, Marion. We’ll go far far away from them. We’re going to be together, and we’re going to get better one step at a time, okay?” He rubbed his back. “Where are you taking us...?”

Letting his breath hitch, stutter in his throat and settle into a fragile version of calm, he stilled at the kisses, nodded at the words, let a flicker of some desperate hope flare up somewhere to eclipse the tiniest portion of his pain. "Oh- yeah. We should be… close..."

He leaned over, let the air shift and change around them, as he glanced down. He dropped them slowly through a gap in the clouds, the foggy, freezing mist lapping at his legs as he gripped the other man tightly again, concentrating as he stared down at the sparkling image of the city below… looking for something. "Okay, hold on," He finally spoke, and the world was plummeting around them again. Euclidi moved fast, faster than most drones or seagulls, and after a few erratic turns and pulls on the atmosphere around them to avoid traffic heavy streets and portions where the light shone the brightest, he finally slowed again, lowering them gently into a deserted dead-end alley surrounded by red brick apartment buildings. The fire escapes crawled up and down the stone sides like twisted spiderwebs; he reached out to grab one of those near the roof and swung neatly onto it, setting Greyson down again.

Letting out a small breath as the wind died about them, Marion reached for the pad-locked latch on the window, and in a manner of seconds it had fallen off, and he was pulling the glass up. Batting aside the curtains, he pulled back and offered to let the other man go first with a little flourish of his hands and a watery attempt at a joking smile. "Ex-convicts first?"

He clung to him, watching their descent, then closed his eyes where they started falling farther. He clung to him so he wouldn’t fall, his face buried in the crook of his neck.

He took his hands once they landed, laughing softly. “Please. Hold the cheese.” He lifted him up into his arms, and then climbed into the window, setting him down once they were inside. “I think we both deserve some rest. Where is this, exactly? And does the Union know about it?” He said this while leaning forward, kissing at his forehead comfortingly.

Oh, Greyson would be pissed. Greyson would fuck this all up, and Corvid didn’t quite have a solution to that yet.

Or maybe he’d take the chance.

Maybe Greyson would run away with Marion.

Maybe he wouldn’t feel guilty.

That was doubtful.

Greyson always felt guilty for what Corvid did. It had been his hands that had done it, so it was his fault, right? Greyson carries the guilt of all of Corvid’s actions, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

But he didn’t know that. He didn’t know there was any difference between Greyson and Corvid. He didn’t know that he  _ wasn’t _ Corvid. Not by a long shot.

Marion hadn't expected the other man to pick him up; hushing the surprised noise before it could escape his lips and reaching up to fist into the other's shirt to hold himself steady until he was back onto his feet. Well- it took him a second longer than that to let go. Eyes fluttering closed at the kiss, he gave a sated little murmur, just a faint noise of listless thanks for the comforting touch.

"No- no, they don't," He assured quietly, fumbling in the dark to pull the window closed and lock it from the inside, shutting the curtains as he spoke, "It was- it was me, I set up a contingency plan in case...in case I'd ever have to go into hiding," he explained, in a tone that said that he still wasn't quite in with it all- the glazed over quality of a subtly shocked man was more evident once he'd finished rustling around in the dark and plugged in a string of fairy lights to the outlet closest to the window. They illuminated the room, set to a slowly pulsing pattern that shone dimly overhead, revealing high ceilings and large, wooden support rafters melding into the Mediterranean spackled ceiling. "This was just part of it. I paid in cash, used false names, got separate bank accounts. No one knows. No one," he murmured anxiously, as if reciting the checklist to calm his own nerves. He'd never in a million years dreamed he'd have to use it for something like this.

He pulled him to the couch to sit down, then tugged him into his arms. “I did the same thing, only dozens of times. Dozens of names and apartments. I confessed to them after I got caught.” Well, Greyson did.

He kissed at his forehead, never taking his hands off him. “Thank you, Marion. Thank you, so, so much. We’re gonna get through this, okay? We’re going to run away, farther than upstate. To Europe. Rome. Won’t that be wonderful...?” He rubbed his back, tugging his shirt up so he could run his nails over the skin.

“Love you, baby. I love you.”

Marion followed on autopilot, limbs moving like they were made of lead. Some small part of him wanted to reach up and check in, because surely Greyson was terrified too. But the adrenaline was finally starting to wear away and sink him into the fuzzy embrace of post-panic weariness; and he was grateful, so very grateful he could sink into the soft touches and the warm embrace and pretend he wasn't trying to quell the nausea rising from the pit of his stomach and the panic putting an ache in his bones. He didn't even have the energy left, all the sudden, to berate himself for not biting back the soft cries that convulsed in his throat, and he curled up into the other's arms, shuddering faintly at the gentle harshness of the nails running over the almost faded scars, arching into it, nodding at the three words, the three tender words that tugged so painfully at his heartstrings.

"We..." He trailed off, confusion coloring the tone as he looked up for a second, "We..have to leave New York?”

“They’d catch us if we didn’t. But we don’t have to think about that now. Sleep, baby doll. Sleep.” He kissed his throat, the nape of his neck. “We’re safe for now. No one can hurt us.”

Perhaps he could sleep, too. He was tired. So tired. Perhaps he could sleep with the hero wrapped in his arms. He’d won, after all. He deserved it.

He hummed soft songs under his breath as he rubbed his back, lulling him to sleep. Letting him believe he really loved him. Really, truly loved him. He wished he’d had his fire; then he could keep him warm against his chest.

His head was fumbling around with the information, clumsily trying to make sense of it. New York was his city, his state, his entire world. Marion didn't think he'd actually ever left the state until he started going on trips for the NHU, and then those were only ambassadorial trips, only weeks at a time. He'd been places, sure, but it was  _ for _ New York. Everyone he'd ever needed was right here. And now there was no one left.

The man tuned back in enough to nod again, turn his head up to accept the kisses, and then he slumped bonelessly, until the half-hearted crying died down into semi-erratic puffs of breath against his chest that leveled out as he fell into a dead sleep.

He closed his eyes, eventually sleeping only after Marion was out cold. Greyson got nightmares; Corvid didn’t.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	31. Like Blood And A Knife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m very proud about how I wrote the ending of this chapter. I think you guys will like it. If you’re not willing to read about my boys suffering anymore, I think you’d have a sufficient happy ending of you stopped here lol
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

He slept soundly until around five thirty the next morning, when his eyes flew open, and he let out a strangled cry.

He quickly silenced himself when he realized someone was asleep in his arms, and that it was Marion. Oh, Corvid must’ve done this. Corvid must’ve seduced him, convinced him to break him out. They wouldn’t get far, Corvid’s hold on him was weak at best. Perhaps if he fessed up now, Marion’s punishment wouldn’t be too harsh...

Yellow lights shifted across Marion's vision.

Yellow lights, foggy voices fading away from some dream he didn't care to remember, and the kind of warmth that came, Marion knew from experience- from someone alive pressed against him. His hand twitched; scratched against the roughly woven surface of the couch- and oh, he recognized this place. The couch, the faint, angelic pulse of the fairy lights. The throbbing headache in his skull and the leftover bits of cortisol and adrenaline pooled in his gut, the body he was curled up against.

He must have  _ really _ gotten plastered last night. Which made sense; usually the times he escaped to his personal apartment were when the pressures associated with work became too much even for him, which was rare but not impossible. It would explain why he couldn't remember much, and why they were on the couch. Usually he had enough sense in him to drag whoever it was to bed before he slammed the last few brain cells out of both of them. Marion grimaced faintly, fumbling to sit up. He didn't want to think about what might be staining his couch. He'd grown fond of it, and it'd be a pain to steam, let alone replace… 

Eyes parting wider, he rumbled a bleary groan, whispered something about making breakfast. And then his eyes fell onto the other man's face. Oh.  _ Oh, yeah. _

Marion bolted backwards, scrambling away, a frightened wheeze escaping as his entire intestinal system flipped around. He stood up and fled to the bathroom, barely having time to slam the door shut before he was vomiting into the toilet. He finished with shaking hands and a gasping chest, the regret forcing him to dry heave every time he recalled last night.

His eyes widened, and he fumbled for a moment as the weight was lifted from his chest. Oh, had Corvid forced him? What could he hold against him?

He decided it’d be best to stay where he was, although he ached to follow him, to beg  _ please, Marion, I don’t know what I was doing _ . And he didn’t. He didn’t know what he’d be doing, or what he’d done.

He slowly stood. Breakfast, breakfast would be nice. If he could get Marion to calm down enough to talk to him, to explain  _ what the hell I did last night _ .

Why there were red marks on his wrists, and his lips were chapped from the cold.

How far they were from the facility, where they were in the first place. How they’d gotten out.

He couldn’t speak to Corvid- the walls only broke down when they were about to switch, and they’d done that in their sleep.

He made his way to the kitchen. Found some bisquick and a pan and a spatula. Syrup in the back of the fridge, and chocolate chips somewhere. He made pancakes, without thinking about it. His mind was on Marion. He felt sick thinking about what he’d done to him.

Once Marion had finished churning his insides like they were in a salad spinner, he stumbled up to the sink to rinse his mouth out, taking a moment to stare at his pale, still faintly trembling figure in the mirror. "Oh, my god. Oh my  _ god, _ " the man groaned quietly, sinking his head down to rest on the cold ivory enamel of the sink ledge.

His head still swam; memories of last night clouding what little sense he could make of it. Something had happened, happened to Grey. It was like a switch had been flicked, and suddenly the guilt-ridden, grieving man Marion had been trying to help for so long had turned back into- well, a villain. It hurt to think that a combination of things out of his control, as well as the hero's own actions had led them to this- it still ached sorely, thinking he might once again have ruined the fragile hold Greyson had on recovery, but still, he tried to remember that there was always hope. Always.

The man pulled in a few long, heavy breaths, held them in with a clamped jaw, and released, until the anxiety was tamped down, pressed somewhere beneath his lungs where he could save it to deal with later. What he really wanted was a bath- the large tiled tub sunk into the ground was beckoning to him and his hair, hopelessly wind tousled and faintly coated with rubble from the explosion last night, could use a wash. He scrunched up his nose at himself in the reflection for a second, then settled for washing his face and arms, gently lathering and rinsing away until he felt at least a little cleaner, then brushed his teeth. It did wonders for his nerves, that was for sure.

He was still nervous of what he'd find on the other side of the bathroom door, of course. Last night, the steel in the other man's voice and the hissed promises of pain and love alike had set Marion's functioning brain into a state of chaos and while he doubted he'd be quite as easy to manipulate in the light of day, he didn't like feeling that the other had as much power over his mind as he truly did. It was unsettling- especially after he'd realized he truly didn't hate him. Another part of him feared that the blond would be gone altogether; it wouldn't be unfathomable for the man to realize he could just slip out the door while Marion was preoccupied, and it wasn't impossible for even a person without superpowers to disappear if they were clever enough. And Greyson was, well… Greyson.

What he hadn't expected was for the smell of freshly cooked food to greet him as he stepped back out into the main area. Mild confusion seeping into his eyes, he stopped at where the breakfast bar divided the dining table and kitchen, resting one hand against the wall. "...what are you doing?"

He was sat at the bar, having set two places for each of them. He leaned on his hand, facing him.

“I… Panic attacks are no fun, that’s for sure. I made pancakes… sort of a bribe. I don’t remember what happened last night, and I was hoping you could explain it?”

He still wore the stiff, uncomfortable white clothes from the facility, a blatant reminder that this man was not sane, not even close. He  _ looked _ like an insane asylum patient, and that was only obvious when he sat in a normal setting. The hair, the look in his eyes. It was… unsettling. Like a horror movie.

He’d piled chocolate chips on his plate, only the bottom ones melting against his still-warm pancakes. They didn’t give him chocolate in the facility, not real chocolate. He’d take what he could get.

They also didn’t give him fairy lights or painted walls or a kitchen or a couch.

They didn’t give him the sky.

Oh, he could see the sky. He could look out a window and watch the sunrise. It was around 5:45. The sun would be rising soon. If he was quick, maybe he could catch a glimpse of the stars too.

But Marion needed him. He needed to calm down, at least. They needed to sort this out.

Maybe if he turned himself in, he could explain it. Explain that Corvid had seduced him or threatened him or something. Explained what he’d done during those two weeks, created a trigger in Marion’s head that worked a little too well. Maybe if he turned himself in, they’d just put Marion in for therapy, and not a felony. Aiding and abetting a villain was about the same punishment as being one. If Marion was caught, he’d be trapped in the facility alongside him.

Greyson couldn’t let that happen. There was enough weighing on him already, he didn’t need to be the reason behind Marion’s arrest.

He took a bite of his pancakes. Actual silverware in his hands, a real glass plate in front of him. It was surreal, the sudden normality.

"You don't remember?" Marion questioned, blinking once or twice as he shifted from one foot to the other in fairly obvious indecision. It was settled when he moved closer and settled onto a bar stool, leaving an empty one in between them. He'd seen enough proof by now to take the man at his word; the way Greyson had always insisted on keeping his name and Corvid's dissociated from each other even though he still felt the weight of all his actions- along with the changes in tone, in posture, the subtle gestures and glances and idiosyncrasies that made a person themselves- it was too much to be faked and too real to be coincidental.

Marion picked up his fork gently, hefting the weight of the utensil between his fingers for a second, "...what was the last thing you can recall?"

Grey fidgeted a bit, legs crossed on the barstool, then on his knees, then one leg pulled up against his chest. He only really settled when he was sat cross-legged on the counter, bent over his plate of overly-chocolate covered pancakes.

“I… I remember hitting you. And then the security guards bursting in and taking you out... and then… nothing. They sedated me, didn’t they?”

“Corvid took over from there, I think. I don’t always remember what I do when he comes out… I used to watch the news, whenever I went out for a job. Just to catch up. The plant was certainly news to me…”

He still wanted to kiss him, in an odd sort of way. He knew he’d be fucked once he went back, and... well, he wanted a first. Just to know what it was like.

Lips pressing together, he nodded once or twice to show he was listening, starting to spread the melted chocolate over his pancakes along with the syrup. Man, he was glad he'd checked to make sure there weren't any perishables in the fridge last time.

"The guards took me by surprise. I called around to verify there wasn't something going on, apparently it was an extra security measure no one had told me about. Once you woke up, well- yeah, I think it was… Corvid." He lowered his eyes to his plate. "You were like I'd always seen you before, but without the mask this time. You wanted to leave, and you wanted me to help you. You were trying to hurt yourself, threatening to hurt me again. I think it was a combination, the noise, the chaos, the memories, and whatever I'd been already feeling but… at the time it seemed there was… no other choice. They were going to strip away everything you'd had again, unless I- stopped them. It escalated pretty quickly."

"Once we were out I was already freaking out pretty badly and I think you- he- was trying to calm me down. Kept saying stuff like, we'd figure it out together, that we'd start over and heal. That… he loved me. That he'd wanted me for a much longer time than just the facility." Marion swallowed a bite and sighed, at least calm recounting it. "I played right into his hands, Grey. I didn't think- well, you really are like two different people aren't you?”

“Loved you-“ he breathed, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his thighs, his hands in his hair.

“He said he loved you… that bastard doesn’t love. Corvid doesn’t feel, he doesn’t feel anything. He leaves me for that...” he let out a breath.

“If I ever,  _ ever _ do that again, know that it- that it is true...” he glanced at the window. He could see the light starting to come in, but he couldn’t just hold everything to rush outside and watch the sunrise. Corvid had fucked up. Big time. A sunrise wouldn’t fix that.

“I- he’s going to be back. He’s going to try to convince you to take us away… we need to go back to the facility. You have to take me back- I can explain everything. We can keep your record clean.” He wasn’t thinking about what would happen to him. Marion was distraught, someone he cared about was suffering. He had to do something.

Marion had begun to eat, knowing that he was hungry even under all the fatigue and stress. He stayed silent, listening to the hollow ticking of a clock from the living room; the guttural hum of the refrigerator. The washed out light of pre-dawn threw the room into a cooler grey blue tone, illuminating more of the place.

He'd chosen it for how tucked away it was, one of the ancient, sturdy pieces of 1920's New York history, with dark floorboards worn to a polished smoothness, and the fireplace bricks and furnishings colored a cozy cream with chipping paint. The space was tidy and open, if a little dusty from misuse. To sit there with Grey, eating pancakes like it was just a late Sunday morning- it was surreal, and it put a twinge of that old longing back in his chest that he buried with a quiet rejoinder,

"... that… would be best. But only for me. I had some level of authority over what happened to you before, that will be completely gone. You understand that, right?"

He swiped at a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his mouth distractedly and stood up, moving towards the window to pull the curtains aside, "I won't be able to ward off...anything, anyone that comes after you like I could before. The NHU would decide in the end what happens to you. That's a problem, for more than one reason."

“I know what it would mean for me. I know what would happen to me. I don’t care, Marion. We have two options: run away somewhere and live with the guilt, or go back. If we go back, one of us has a chance to keep going. Let’s face the facts here, Marion, if we ran away together, it would end in my suicide. You’re the only reason I haven’t done it yet; I thought about it four times just while I was cooking. We need to go back.” He didn’t look at him. Just stayed hunched over his rapidly-cooling pancakes.

“If they decide to kill me, that’s fine. If I never see you again, that’s fine. I’ll be f-fine.” He slid off the counter to sit on the floor. “Corvid will still be there. He’ll always be there. I’m  _ fucked _ .”

And where was the lie? Where was he wrong there? He was an excellent logician- he’d already thought it all out. He was thinking about Marion, not himself.

From the other side of the apartment, Marion leaned against the window to stare out into the alleyway, look beyond that over the buildings below and the little patch of sea beyond that visible from the vantage point. His mouth twitched into a hopeless, despondent smile, voice too quiet to hear from the kitchen- "They won't let you die."

He'd done enough research by now to connect a few dots, or at least  _ see _ that there were holes in this whole equation. They would have killed Greyson off the bat, he would have been gone by now. Except that someone, somewhere in the justice system had decided that the man still had something they needed, and he had a feeling he knew what. He didn't like the idea of tossing the two of them back into that system. Even if it had been his whole world for so long. But- Greyson was right. What choice did they have? There was nowhere else to go, nothing that could take them away from what they'd done.

Greyson was  _ right- _ fighting any longer, no matter how much he wanted to, would only make things worse. And Marion knew for a fact that he was always the worst at knowing when he was outnumbered and overpowered. It was the hero's greatest strength and flaw in one.

But Greyson was right, and the weight of it was crushing. Marion was tired. Scared, still, and so exhausted.

He turned back around, padded softly over to where the convict was sitting, and slid down besides him. The etched lines of depression and defeat were clear in Greyson's posture and his face, and it made Marion hesitate a moment before reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "Stay with me here."

It was a resigned, burned out whisper, like he was offering a prisoner a last drink of water before they stepped up to the guillotine. "Just for a day or two. Stay with me, and pretend there's nothing out there. It won't matter if we wait a day or two, the sentence will be the same. You can control Corvid. I won't let you hurt yourself. I'll… make it happy for you, just for a day or two, and then we can go back and try to make things right. Just for a few days, pretend none of this ever happened. If you wanted..."

He hiccuped. Nearly protested staying with him. Nearly gasped and cried and told him that if he stayed here, Marion would find him in the bathroom with slit wrists and a note on the counter.

He’d already thought about what that note would say. He’d already written it all out in his head.

He wouldn’t have said much.

_ I’m sorry _ , he would’ve written.

_ I’m sorry, Marion. _

_ ”Just a few days _ .” He murmured. Just a few days of sleepy cuddles and sunsets and sunrises and all the chocolate he could eat.

“I can’t control Corvid, that’s where you’re wrong. If he came out of his own accord once, he can do it again. He-he could run away… he could leave me stranded on a boat halfway to France. He isn’t me...” He climbed into his lap. Wrapped his legs around his waist and his arms around his shoulders, buried his face in the crook of his neck.

“I wanna stay with you.” He whispered. “I want to watch the sunset with you. I want to go stargazing, I want to go to the beach. I want you to hold me, Marion, I need you to hold me.”

He angled his head to rest it comfortably against the other's, and his arms wrapped around- the way Marion had of hugging, with one arm pressed against his back and the other across his waist, pulling him tightly closer. His eyes were still sad, voice shifted into some tender empathy that swept away the rest of his reservations, "I know. I know, baby, it's okay. Just let it all go."

He rubbed his thumb gently up and down the indent where Greyson's shoulder blade met his back, "This isn't in your control, Grey. Just let it go, and let me take care of you. I won't let you out of my sight- won't let you out of my arms if that's what it takes. If Corvid comes back I won't let him escape or get to my head. I can do that, if it's for you. Just for a while."

His voice had lowered to something sweet, longing; he shifted, letting his lips brush against Greyson's jawline; not a kiss, but the temptation of one. "I need you to say yes, darling. Just say yes, and we'll go watch the sun come up."

The pet names, oh the pet names. Baby, darling. As if they weren’t sworn enemies a few months ago, as if they were long-time friends. As if there was a chance of something else. He pressed his chest against him, touching him as much as he could, pressing his body to him as if he were the only source of warmth in a world of cold.

“Yes, a thousand times yes. I want to forget about it, just for a few days...” he felt his hands through the itchy fabric, and he suddenly had the overwhelming urge to tear the bright white fabric off his body. His nails dug into Marion’s shoulders instead of his own.

“I want it… I want you. I want your help...” he mumbled. He wanted to forget who he was, he wanted to forget Corvid and Euclidi and the facility and his own Goddamn name. He wanted to kiss him.

Marion's breath shuddered softly at the feel of nails digging into his skin, but it wasn't fear. It was relief and anticipation, the kind of pain that made him have to suppress a little thrill of excitement. This was Greyson, not Corvid. This was the man he wanted to make happy, wanted to see crumbling into his hands under the bliss. The eyes he wanted to see trained on him as if Greyson's universe had shifted until it was centered on something so much lighter than what he'd always known.

Permission given, he reached up, stroking the blond hair behind the man's ear, carding it in between his fingers as he gently pulled his head back to nuzzle against his chin, teasing just for a second. The stubble was a pleasing roughness against his face and he pressed a kiss down, a chaste, loving thing, another following soon after, his hand caressing a soothing harmony to the touches as he kissed lightly at the corner of Greyson's mouth, then let their lips line up just a millimeter apart, breathed in a hushed and tender tone, "...take it, love. Kiss me, and I'll make you mine."

Something in the back of his head told him that Marion’s words had an undertone to them; the way he spoke was the same way a manipulative man would speak.

_ ”This isn’t in your control, Grey.” _

_ “I won't let you out of my sight- won't let you out of my arms if that's what it takes.” _

_ “I need you to say yes, darling. Just say yes, and we'll go watch the sun come up.” _

Those were words his father had used to manipulate him, or more likely, the words Greyson had used to manipulate Marion. But he needed him. He needed this. He needed to trust him, and he  _ did _ trust him.

The first kiss made him shiver. The second made his grip on his back loosen. The third made his hands fall to his sides, limp and useless.

Their breath mingled, shared between the two, on the edge of sharing saliva as well.

He’d taste like chocolate.

He’d taste like syrup.

He’d taste like blood and a knife and a whip and burning flesh.

Like chains and rubble and white walls.

Greyson let their lips touch. All he had to do was lean forward, just a little.

He tasted like Marion.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	32. To Make You Happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go! I don’t know if I’m editing faster than we’re writing, but the doc is definitely getting shorter, so I have to be? Whatever
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

His head tilted slightly, angling the pressure in the kiss to make it sing in gentle movements and humid breath when he parted for air. He stayed, locked there, a low hum escaping his throat as he gave Greyson's lips a gentle bite, and shifted his grip on the other, effortlessly standing back up with the man in his arms still. Breakfast forgotten, he turned for the fire escape, pulling a throw blanket folded up at the foot of the couch along with them as he stepped back out onto the fire escape.

The apartment was a loft style, so it was one of the top floor ones and the view widened as he climbed up the few last precarious steps like he'd done it a hundred times before, up onto a crevice on the roof. The harbor was aglow, water glittering with the rays of sunshine bouncing off the waves, shining in the clouds from last night, all the soft pastels of early morning over the rooftops. Marion settled back down, a little smile fluttering into his eyes as he leaned forwards to bump heads with the blond, in the cool morning air, "It's not upstate but...I'd say it's still a hell of a view," He murmured softly, starting to unfold the blanket to cast it around Greyson.

He gasped at the feel of teeth on his lip, then again when he was lifted. He didn’t mind leaving his breakfast behind when they went up the steps. He wasn’t hungry anyway.

He kept his eyes closed until they were on the roof, the blanket around his shoulders, leaning on Marion’s. His mouth hung open. So much color... so much light, so much beauty in one image. He couldn’t help the tears streaming down his face. He couldn’t stop his sobs. “Thank you, Marion.” He whimpered. “Thank you, so, so much...”

"Mmh," Marion gave a soft hum, split between looking at the water, and looking at the man in his arms; he rested his back against the solid brick behind them, leaning to make his shoulders a more secure place for Greyson's head, and pulled him close again. The world was full, here in the city on an early spring morning; the distant din of the closest street echoing faintly down with traffic and the occasional shout. Someone's dog barked for a while somewhere; a church bell tolled from far away and a fog horn bellowed back from a distant marina. The wind whistled a tuneless melody to itself, playing gently with blond locks and loose black curls as it bustled by.

New York lived and breathed around them and Marion held Greyson close, warding off the chill and reaching up to swipe away the tears in a silent gesture of understanding. Because what sunrise wasn't beautiful enough for tears? What panorama like this couldn't bring a tortured soul to rest, if even for a few pure moments of sacred existence? He didn't want to ruin it with words, so he just kissed the man again, dropped his lips to the other's temple, hoping it could convey his heartfelt wishes for the other-  _ it's for you, today. The sun rose to make you happy. _

He curled into his lap, leaned against his chest like the spot was made for him, like it was built just for him to slot into and watch the sunrise.

New York was overwhelming, but not in a bad way. Just in a way that drew his attention. There was a reason so many tourists loved New York.

And he couldn’t help but look. The city was alive, and Greyson had actively worked to diminish that life. He regretted it, especially when he sat here and took it all in. When was the last time he’d taken the time to watch the sunrise?

He tilted his head up into his kiss, never tearing his eyes from the beautiful city. Never tearing his eyes from the water. He wanted to learn to swim. He wanted to cling to Marion while his feet barely touched the bottom, the water poking through his skin. He wanted Marion, in more ways than one.

Marion's thoughts slowed to a lazy drone in the background- it was easy to get lost in the simple vibrancy of the surroundings, and he was entranced by the very nature of the world around him- reveling quietly in the moment without fear of future or desire to plunge ahead or ask anything of himself or the universe.

The sun inched up over the water, imperceptibly yet unmistakably, casting the whole sky as its own canvas to paint. A few ships became visible in the rising light, little pillars of smoke or steam rising in blooming columns. The tell-tale flutter of wings and the coo of pigeons signaled they weren't alone in the audience. Idly, as if it were as natural as breathing, his hand sought out Greyson's, bumping against it gently before he hooked his fingers into the other's, holding it in both of his with his face tipped up to the light.

It was a long time, much longer after the sun had finished rising, when he shifted, pulled in a quiet breath- "Ready to go back in?" 

He’d closed his eyes, just listening. To the sounds of voices and a television in the next apartment over, to the wind and the birds and the call of the water. He let the sun hit his face, in a way it hadn’t done for so, so long.

He entwined his fingers with his, pressing his palm right against the palm of the hero whose lap he currently sat in. The hero he shouldn’t have been with, the hero who shouldn’t have broken him out. It felt wonderful. Breaking the rules without harm, and with someone meant to uphold them. It felt so, so good just to  _ be _ . Without being in pain or causing it. It was nice

He whined once he heard the whisper of Marion’s voice in his ear, but he turned around to wrap his legs around his waist so he could be carried back. He didn’t ever want to let go.

Marion shifted his weight carefully on the slanted roof as he lifted them back up, years of combat training and skating making his foothold sure and stable as he quietly climbed back down, keeping his back to the rest of the alley to shield his face and Greyson's body from prying eyes. It was illicit, a secret they shared in broad daylight, but he knew that even if there were any faces peeking out of the curtained windows, there wasn't a way to ascertain who the two men were other than perhaps just a pair of lovers locked in the midst of too much affection to part even for a second. And Marion couldn't think of anything more he'd like to pretend.

The curtains rustled as he brushed past them, landing back on the shag rug, and he moved to press Greyson's back against the wall, supporting him enough that he could let go with one hand, cup his cheek, requesting softly, "Can I kiss you again? Deeper this time?"

He tilted his head up so his back was flat against the off-white walls. Marion was asking to kiss him. Marion  _ wanted _ to kiss him, and he couldn’t help but remember that the same question had been turned down what must’ve been a week ago now.

He pressed his palm to Marion’s and leaned into his hand, allowing his weight to be supported by him. “Yes, of course, yes. You can kiss me.  _ Please _ kiss me.”

He’d take all that he could get. He’d never kiss again after this, he knew it. Might as well get what he could now.

"Let me know if any of it gets to be too much. I know this is new- you don't need to do anything overwhelming," Marion cautioned at a whisper, as a pleased smile and happy hum escaped. He leaned in to catch Greyson's lips again.

It was more alive this time, if that were possible- he shifted, tilted his head to the side to press in harder, hands stroking down his sides as he held him against the wall. His fingers rubbed circles into Greyson's hips as he pulled the man's lower lip in between his teeth again, nibbling softly in a way that was sure to leave it a little redder when he parted. His tongue flicked against the other's mouth, tracing over it gently as he asked permission to enter, warm and soft and still tasting faintly of chocolate.

He nodded a bit, until his lips were captured and he was hostage to his own wants.

And oh Gods, this man knew what he was doing. All he could do was cling to him and press his lips forward. Once he felt his tongue at his lips, he hesitated for just a moment, then parted them and allowed his tongue to slip in.

The hands on his hips was new to him. He knew what it implied, but he hadn’t really thought that this was what kissing entailed. Well, it hadn’t hit him that kissing meant love, meant romance. That to other people, people who felt more than he did, kissing was shared between lovers.

Oh. Lovers.

He pushed the thought away, instead focusing on how  _ good _ it felt. He mimicked his movements, tilting his head the other way, and slipping his tongue into his mouth just like Marion had. Never in a million years had he thought he’d be pressed against a wall, kissing a hero.

The noise that came from deep in Marion's throat was rumbled contentment; his smile twitching upwards for a second as he met tongues with Greyson, making an expedition of it, exploring his mouth, flicking and pressing in harder where he could feel the other's reactions. Greyson was engagingly receptive. He barely wanted to part for air, waiting until his lungs burned faintly before pulling back with a little gasp, catching his breath, "God, you're making me want you more," he whispered, before falling into him again, shifting Greyson up higher so he was pushing up into the man with the coal black curls sliding down into his eyes again as they fluttered shut.

Greyson panted as they broke apart. He couldn’t say anything. He had nothing to say. So he was content when Marion pushed him up and kissed him, harder this time. He tilted his head down to kiss him back, to show how much he wanted this, how much he enjoyed it. His hand slipped up under his shirt, then rested on his bare waist. His hands were frigid, but he couldn’t do anything about that.

He could feel the scars, just where his hand lay. He could feel the grooves and bumps in his skin, and he knew that if he slid down just a bit, he’d feel a handprint on his hip, and a matching one on the other side.

And suddenly he yelped into Marion’s mouth, pulling his lips away. “I-I...”

The fazed heat of the moment faded out of Marion's eyes as the blond pulled away, he stilled his own hands, just a thumb continuing to rub reassuring little strokes into Greyson's side, as he asked softly, "What's wrong… need to take it slower?"

“I... I forgot about the scars... I forgot... about...” he pressed his lips to his again, to silence himself. “I just... we need to keep our shirts on. I don’t want you to see my scars.” He could feel his hands on him, soothing even after everything.

"...." Marion leaned into the kiss, making it more chaste this time with an understanding hum, "Shirts stay on, got it. Although you still have my permission to touch me. Wherever, however. I don't mind." He paused, then pulled away from the wall, letting Greyson down onto the couch with an added kiss to the juncture where his neck met his shoulder. "Although… speaking of that, I have some clothes here you could borrow… if you'd like to get cleaned up, get out of these," And he stroked over the coarse, shapeless white clothes with one palm, remembering the dried bloodstains still dotting the shirt.

“That’d be nice...” he tilted his head up and back, giving him better access. The scars from his nail marks were only just finishing healing. They were more visible than any of the other ones, that was for sure. “I...I want you, Marion. I want your hoodies and your blankets and your tee shirts. I want to smell like you. I want to be yours...” he collapsed against his chest, taking a deep breath. “You’re the best thing I’ve ever had.”

The man blinked a little, cursing Aphrodite for the flush that dusted faint rose across his cheeks; he'd just been making out with the guy, for heaven's sake, in a not exactly virginal kind of way. Yet somehow the thought of Greyson claiming his own clothes, draping himself in Marion's scent- it made his heart flip.

"You're entrancing," He sighed contentedly, and let a hand fall against the back of Greyson's head, fingers slipping idly through his hair as he gently combed through it with one hand, carefully working out any snags with a ginger touch or two. "I can run a bath while you get some things, if you'd like. They're all in the bedroom."

“The showers at the facility were always so cold...” he mumbled. The feeling of his fingertips along his scalp, the way Marion held him as if he understood every problem in the world... it made him feel welcome. Made him feel wanted, truly wanted.

He pulled him down onto the couch, hugging him tight. He could feel his heartbeat. He could feel the pounding against his ribcage, and couldn’t help but feel satisfied that he caused that, that he was the reason behind the blush on his cheeks. Oh gods, was this love?

"I wouldn't let it be cold," Marion replied easily, able to promise that for sure. He moved down at the embrace with a chuff of pleased amusement, rocking back a little further into the cushions, one leg hooking over the other's, "Or...we could stay here for a while longer."

“I don’t know what sounds better... I don’t want to let go of you. I don’t want to... to...” he pressed his cheek right against his chest. “I don’t want to come out to see cops... I’m scared you’re just doing this to keep me distracted...”

His hand stilled at the movement so he wouldn't yank Greyson's hair, following him closer, hesitating a moment, before whispering, breathlessly, "I...I could never fake this. I couldn't stop wanting you if I tried, darling."

It was true, and it put a pang of melancholy into his heart, because he'd known from the start that he wouldn't want to turn himself in either, if only for another few days, or hours or even minutes spent in blissful solitude. "I want to stay with you," he murmured softly.

“You are the lover that comes with the apartment upstate.”

He didn’t say anything else after that. He closed his eyes against his chest, feeling his hands in his hair, his chest pressed to his. He wished they were bare. He wished he could splay his palms out over his warm skin and see past the marks. But that required taking his shirt off, too, and he couldn’t do that.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	33. Never See You Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentioned/Implied smut in the next chapter, I’m just warning you all. If you don’t like it, feel free to skip it. I don’t know if there’s anything plot relevant in it, though, so that’s just a heads up.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Marion let his eyes fall closed at this, marveling at the proximity and how unbearably, intensely alive it was. He swore this wouldn't get old fast; it only seemed to grow more natural the longer his arms were wrapped around the other. The more Greyson pulled him close and told him that he wanted him too. His other hands moved idly through the strands of blond, weaving a short, loose braid and pulling it free again, carding it back, tucking it behind his ears.

There was more than just his own scent lingering on the cushions, he realized. It was more than Marion's cologne or the undertone of musk for how long he hadn't showered, or the faintly woody spice of his favorite pomade. Greyson's presence left his mark, mingling and making it something entirely new, and with another longing ache, Marion realized that he wanted to believe that it smelled like home.

Greyson didn’t smell himself in the cushions. He smelled Marion, smelled the history. He felt it, too. He knew that this was Marion’s safe space, and he felt honored that he’d brought him here.

He looked up at him. Lifted his chin off his chest and met his eyes. “Tell me you’ll be that. Tell me you’ll take the place of the faceless lover I always dreamed about. Tell me you’ll be what keeps me up at night, and what helps me sleep. Tell me you want me.”

The clear, blue eyes met his, widening a little as he stared back at Greyson. He didn't have any hesitation as he reached for the man's hand, shifted a little so he could pull it to his lips and press a kiss to his knuckles. "I want you," Marion vowed solemnly, "More than I've wanted a man, in  _ so _ long. I want you for more than a fling, more than an intimate night. As long as you'll have me, as long as you need me. I'll be your ballast and your friend, and even if we should part...I'll keep room in my heart for you. I'll wait for you. I'll wake you from the nightmares, I'll hold you through the pain. I want you."

He watched him. Watched his eyes for some sign, some tell that he was lying, or just saying this to make him feel better. He didn’t find one. He pressed a kiss to his lips, then to his throat. “Thank you.” He whispered. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He tugged himself closer, still for a long moment. “I wanna go take a bath. Get out of the facility clothes.”

Marion barely had time to break the smile to kiss back, honestly a little embarrassed by how much the appreciation affected him and murmuring a faint noise to at least try and show a little of it. But he nodded, let his fingers dance up Greyson's shoulder in a light brush over the dust and blood stained white and brushing away a little bit of dust that had caked there. "I'll give you your privacy," He replied softly, shifting to gather the man up so he wouldn't have to part them quite yet, and standing to move to the bathroom.

It was probably the only time he'd ever regret getting such a large tub; it would take a while to fill, and he regarded it with a critical eye as he knelt to settle the man down on the edge of the concave. "...how warm do you want it?"

He wrapped his legs around his waist, hips pressed to his. He didn’t want to let go, but he kept thinking about how nice it would be to curl up in bed with him, wrapped in his hoodie.

“Hot enough to boil me alive. I think I can feel heat now. I couldn’t be burned, before, but I think I can now.”

He wanted Marion to join him in the bath, but he didn’t want him to see the scars. He’d have to see them eventually... maybe he’d let him see them after he got out. Come out in a towel. Or sweatpants. Better to get it over with.

Marion's lips twitched; he nodded and turned to the faucets, cranking them all the way up. He doubted the water lines would get much hotter than a human could bear, but he still checked it for the right kind of sting that the heat would leave behind, the kind of heat that pulsed and stung and pushed deep into the muscles, leaving behind a tingling when it was gone. If Grey hadn't stated so clearly that he wanted to keep himself covered while in sight, Marion too would have been tempted to dip into the water, though he at least tried to have the decency to stop himself before he could think too much about what Greyson's skin would feel like pressed against his lips, flushed red and humid with water.

"I only have my own shampoo, ran out of conditioner- sorry," He apologized offhand as he went to dig under the sink and set them by the tub along with a bar soap and washcloth. There were some other extra things in there- he'd made it a point to get plenty of unopened toothbrushes, seeing as how seldom he'd use his and how he never knew if he'd have a guest over. A first aid kit, bottles of soap, worn and fluffy towels, a few of which he piled up on the toilet seat. "I'll get some clothes," He stood up finally, turning for the door, "Be right back."

“That’s okay. My hair is really greasy anyway. Conditioner doesn’t do me much good. I never used it, before, anyway.” He was rambling, trying to keep his mind clear of the way he bent down to test the water, the way his clothes lifted over his shoulders as he did. He wanted to run his hands through his hair, no, he wanted to see it  _ wet _ . He wanted to watch the water drip from his head, sliding off and straightening the dark curls, turning them even darker.

He found himself staring, his face flushing with heat, both from the steam and Marion’s eyes on him. He didn’t want him to go, even if it was just to go get clothes for him.

He wanted another kiss.

Marion paused for a second, one hand on the door frame as he glanced back over his shoulder to the other. For a second, a little bit of something not quite pleasure, but maybe- affection, danced in his eyes before he continued out. He couldn't imagine that Grey had many chances to be admired before this, but he somehow found himself wanting to tell the man how beautiful he looked, with the steam fogging the mirrors to reflect muted light that shone in his hair and his face flushed and his  _ eyes- _

His train of thought cut off as he realized abruptly he was already in the bedroom. He paused at the dresser, stalling for a few seconds. Marion had only ever seen the blond in his villain costume, or the prison suit, so he opted to give the man a little bit of choice in clothing- pulling out a long sleeve flannel shirt and one of his old concert tees from college, black sweats, and underclothes. He hadn't worn his hair long enough to pull into a bun for years, but he still had some of his ties and things for it, so he threw those in as an afterthought, just in case.

"I've only got one hoodie in there," He announced as he came back in, "And honestly, you're gonna have to rob it off me after I take my turn in here because god that thing is soft. Is this good? Do you need anything else?"

He sat on the counter, waiting for him to come back, his eyes closed. The steam already felt nice on his skin, the heat. It was sticking to his skin, giving his face and hair a subtle sheen. He already missed the feel of Marion’s hands on his body.

He stood and took the folded pile from him, setting it on the counter and leaning over to kiss his cheek. “It’s perfect, Marion, thank you.”

He didn’t want to close the door, but he did anyway, locking it. Slowly, steadily, he peeled the white synthetic fabric from his body, throwing it into a corner.

He dipped one foot into the tub, feeling the scalding heat on his skin. Oh, that was wonderful... he stepped in, just standing there for a moment, until he could convince himself to lower his body into the water. His skin was already red and flushed. He dipped his head under, feeling the warmth cover his face.

_ You could drown yourself here _ . Something in the back of his mind whispered.  _ You could push your head under and never bring it back up _ .

He quickly pushed it away, sitting up abruptly. No, he couldn’t die. Not when Marion would be the one to discover his bloated body, boiling like a potato. No, he had to live for him.

The thought of Greyson hurting himself hadn't slipped Marion's mind- once on the other side of the door he spent a brief second to feel relief that he didn't have any razors in the bathroom. Typically he used an electric one, himself. He hesitated at the bathroom door for a second, then took a deep breath, resolving to use the alone time to his advantage.

At some point during the slapdash escape, Marion's phone had disappeared, or maybe he'd destroyed it accidentally. He wasn't too torn up about losing something that could be so easily traced, anyway, and he had a spare hidden in the apartment. After ordering some groceries to be delivered, he went to change the musty bed-sheets and dust off the counters. Marion liked to keep his living spaces clean, it was fulfilling to have something he could count on keeping nice, in a job surrounded by things that were so often beyond his hands. It was only midday, and what little there was to clean was finished quickly.

He couldn't help but feel the domesticity of it, cross-legged on the floor in front of a kitchen cabinet, every once in a while glancing at the hallway where the bathroom door could barely be seen, sorting out expired cans of food while he waited for Grey to emerge. It was- so mundane, almost. And that was something he hadn't experienced in so long, it was a treasured old friend of a feeling.

It took him almost an hour to get out of the bath, only washing his hair once the water was cool. He pulled himself up and out of the tub, water dripping from his hair and body onto the mat. He wrapped one of the towels around his chest, then used another one to dry his hair. He avoided looking in the mirror.

When he did come out, he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The waistband of Marion’s underwear peeked up from under the sweatpants, which hung low on his hips. He padded out of the bathroom, carrying the towels, unused clothes, and old facility clothes gathered up in his arms. He sat behind him, resting his chin on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything.

Marion had himself buried deep in the recesses of the dark stained cabinets, blowing a cobweb out of his hair while he reached for a can of baby corn that had been sitting there since the second world war, probably. He started a little once he'd come back out and felt the touch, and then relaxed into it, brushing off his hands before reaching up to touch Greyson's cheek.

His mind might have short fused for a second once he'd realized the blond was shirtless; he caught a split second view of the shadow made by the hollow of his hip, just visible above the waistline when he turned, and was unable to tear his eyes away for a moment. Marion turned back to the cabinet doors, closing his eyes as he questioned softly, "I thought you said you didn't want-"

“I know what I said.” He told him softly. “You’ll have to see them eventually. Better now than later. When I’m in worse shape.”

They were bad. Really, really bad. Harsh deep marks, jagged and crossing over his chest, overlapping. Thin, white ones covering his abdomen. An indent in his side that starbursted outward, and a matching on on his shoulder. Whip marks coating his back like a checkerboard.

And marks from his own nails, deep in his collarbone and up his throat. Some of them were older. Tearing at himself had been a habit of his, just the same as a child would bite their nails or suck their thumbs

He wrapped his arms around him, his wrists pressed against his stomach. Even then, he could see the edges of the scars, all the way up his forearms. Hundreds of them, red and white and pink. Thick and thin and deep and shallow. Hundreds.

Marion caught the question on his lips; tucked it down and spun around on his haunches to face Greyson. The man's breath stuttered in his throat like a stalled engine, and for a long, long time he stayed still. The marks were too deep. Too layered, they were marked down and  _ healed _ one on top of the other. Too many, too much.

And he tried not to let the white hot fury show, because it was useless. Tried to keep his face loose, his lips from twisting, knuckles from going white. He reached out, halfway, and let his hands falter because he wasn't sure if he was trying to touch them or embrace the man and he wasn't sure if his touch was wanted. His voice was softer, somehow, quieter. "Baby.."

The anger drained out of his shoulders. Melted him to just the picture of a lover with sorrow in his eyes, the sorrow he felt with him, the pain that came from knowing he couldn't steal away any of Greyson's pain. " _ Mio caro. Mio dio, _ baby boy," he whispered simply, letting a few fingers fall onto the other man's bicep and run gently down his arm. He knew that few, if any of them were his fault, but- "I'm so sorry for you. I'm so sorry."

“Don’t be sorry. Only a couple are yours.” He set his hands in his lap, his legs crossed. “They’re never gonna go. They’re just going to fade. I think that letting you see them... I think letting you see them will help me accept them...” he leaned against him. “I want you to touch them. I want you to  _ know _ .”

He leaned against him, leaving the bundle of laundry at his side. “Touch them. You can touch them. I want you to.”

He tried not to think about the marks on his body, and tried not to think about the marks on Marion’s. He tried not to think about how much he hated them, and how Marion probably hated his. How he was probably the reason behind sleepless nights and nightmares.

He was ready when Greyson leaned in, head turning inwards to rest his head against the other's. His hands moved slowly, laying a palm flat against the scar pocked chest. His hands were cool from the work he'd been doing; hands calloused enough to denote that he was a working man, and soft enough to seem a feather-light touch. They ghosted along the surface of the chest, eyes downcast as he leaned closer a little himself.

The feel was familiar, yet so foreign- Marion hadn't spent much time looking over his own scars, but in the last two months where they'd been healed enough not to be bandaged, he'd run his palms over them, memorizing them like a map. And here was a new one- an alien continent, a record of pain and folly and human cruelty, and suddenly Marion had to resist the urge to press into it. Had to bite down the desire to learn, to memorize every bump and tear and rough patch.

His palm slid down to the other's stomach; he pulled back, and blinked against the glistening blurriness in his eyes. "I want to know, darling. I want to learn all of you." He leaned down to the patchwork starburst, the one coating his shoulder, and pressed his lips against it, whispering into the skin, "I want to love all of you, no matter how it fades."

He curled into his arms. Pressed his chest to his hand, pressed a palm over the one on his stomach.

“We only have a day or so.” The words sank like stones. They had to go back eventually. There wasn’t time to learn him, wasn’t time to hold him. There was only time to look, and to enjoy while they had each other.

They’d agreed. They had to go back. And sure, he felt a little hurt that Marion would choose his job over him, but he was happy for him. Happy he could find something he loved that was broken. Something steady. Solid.

Greyson wasn’t steady. Far from it.

He tilted his head to the side, skin pulling taut as he kissed his shoulder. “Leave a mark. Put a mark in my skin. It won’t last as long as the scars, but it’s far better than them."

Marion hesitated, looking up at the other man through his lashes. He pushed himself up further, up to above the collar bone, just under where his shoulders turned into his neck, and kissed there, slow and sweet. He shook his head faintly, "I will, I will- if it would be better for you to feel than the rest of them, I'd love to," He murmured, "But it'll tire you out. Come to bed first." He paused, then added, as an afterthought, because he knew what it could imply, "I won't… go down anywhere you don't want, but… come to bed with me."

The man didn't like the cold pit that re-emerged at the thought. Didn't like that he felt like dancing around the subject, because he knew it would hurt Greyson more than himself to return yet he was the one wanting to hide from the inevitable like a coward. He was wary, too- having doubts that he couldn't deny. But that was separate from his personal feelings. He banished the thoughts like they were smoke in his eyes, and pulled Greyson into his arms again, "It's not… a preference of mine to mark anyone who'll regret it later," he murmured, "So I need you to be sure."

He tilted his head back slowly, gently. Allowed his black curls to brush against his chin, his throat. He frowned softly as he felt Marion pull away, and let out a soft sigh. “Yeah... yeah, okay... okay...”

he grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, using the counter as a support. It caused the sweatpants to slip down and show more of the waistband of Marion’s underwear. Greyson was wearing Marion’s underwear. He didn’t think he’d be able to get over that.

He held a hand out for him, pressing a kiss to his cheek as he stood. “Perhaps... perhaps it wouldn’t be best... if we want to go back and frame this as a kidnapping/seducing sort of thing, I can’t have marks all over my body, can I?” He was trying to save Marion’s reputation. Not himself.

Nudging the cabinets closed with his foot, he gave a distracted hum, trying not to stare at Greyson. There was already enough between them without him ogling the man like he was a highschooler. He stepped forwards, shook his head as he kept a hold on the other's hands and just closed the gap a little to return the kiss to his nose, "We're not framing it as any such thing. If anything, I kidnapped you after freaking out enough, and I asked you to stay and do this with me," he sighed a little, "Anyway, like I said… there's not much we can do that'll change the verdict and I have some immunities as a hero. I'll be fine, Grey. You can't risk adding that kind of thing to your sentence."

“They could suspend you. They could take your license away. Stop you from being a hero. What’s the worst I’ll get? They can’t kill me, I’m too useful. Might as well blame it on me. It’s not going to change anything.”

“They won’t let me see you after this, you do realize that. They’re not going to let you visit me anymore. Not that there’s much they could do to stop you if you really wanted too, but... you’re such a rule-follower...” he rambled, running a hand through his hair.

“They’ll take your title as my intermediate. They’ll cut you off from me. Once we go back, that’s it. We’re done.”

"I know. I know, I know." Marion nodded, taking a moment to lean back against the fridge, then pulling away when it wobbled with a protesting squeak, under the large man's weight, and burdened the counter instead. He stared at the floor for a few seconds, trying to formulate words on a careful tongue, "But- this isn't the  _ first _ time I've had a… bit of a break from the NHU. I like to trust they know I'm not just some mindless… weapon. I told you the license doesn't make me a hero. At the end of the day, I follow a higher law and that's my conscience, and the responsibility to the people who depend on me to protect them. Nothing can take that away from me.  _ Nothing _ . It's just, usually the justice system holds the same goals. The welfare of the people. Usually, but..."

He paused, glancing up at Greyson. "You… you've picked up on it too, I assume. That they won't kill you."

“I know, and I’m glad you can think for yourself. I know you’d probably have a reduced punishment, if any at all, cause you’re their poster boy. They’re either going to frame one of us or keep this all under wraps. Who’s it going to hurt more if they frame?”

He sighed. “You’re avoiding the subject. I’ll likely  _ never see you again _ . Unless you break in, and then we have another problem on our hands. This is all we’ve got. This is our last hoorah. Hell, if you break in, they’ll probably relocate me somewhere you don’t know about, and I can’t break out of. Marion, we’re  _ fucked _ -“

" _ If _ it lasts forever," Marion interrupted softly, seeking Greyson's hand again to squeeze it. "I hope you know I  _ meant _ it, I really did- when I said I wanted you to be more than a fling. Obviously being separated puts a damper on that, but I don't think there's any forever attached to it. You know what would be worse? Is if we stayed here, like this. It's not healthy, for you or for any love we tried to pursue to be trapped in hiding. You need more than me, you need a support network. Everyone does. And  _ we _ might need to clear up some of the rubble and grow a little before we can even begin to build a foundation strong enough to hold the kind of love I wanna give to you."

He stared earnestly at the other, "Right now, the right thing to do might not be the most gratifying. But if we waited a little and you took the time to explore more of the lighter side of yourself, it would only follow that the right thing to do would be to find each other again, if you'd still want me at that point. They couldn't stop me then, nothing could. Time can heal a lot of things no words could come close to touching. I'd wait for you. I told you I would, if we parted."

“You don’t  _ get it _ , Marion,  _ You don’t get it _ .” He pressed his fists to his chest, even as Marion held his hands. “I can’t go back there. I can’t go back there and-and expect to come out the same man. The doctors and nurses don’t care what happens to me. They’re there to shut up the protests. They’re going to leave me to rot, and if I come out, it’s going to because I’m so broken, I can’t speak anymore.” He pressed his forehead to his sternum.

“We’re not getting another chance. This is it, this is what we’ve got. As long as I am sane enough to love you, they won’t let me out to do so.” His throat burned with tears he couldn’t quite hold back.

“It hurts. The quiet hurts. The walls are bright, and it’s so, so  _ lonely _ . The nurses don’t talk to me. No one does. You’re all I’ve got, and they won’t let me have you when we go back... love me now. Please. If we never get another chance to.”

Marion's brows knit together in confusion that cleared into some surprised sort of guilt as he listened, and he pulled in a quiet breath, "You… you're not going to go back to the  _ facility. _ "

For a second he struggled to find the words, shaking his head, "I'm sorry, I assumed- oh, Grey. Darling, I  _ know _ they weren't helping you. I knew from the second I saw that mural of yours that you'd outgrown that cell, I'm not gonna just drop you off at the front door so they can put you in another one." He gave Greyson the kind of look that begged for understanding, "Whether or not they let us see each other is one thing. But it would be wrong of me to just leave you without making sure you're with people who actually care about helping you. I wouldn't do that, I would  _ never _ . They couldn't stop me with any law or order."

“Then what happens? Where do I go, if not the facility?” He leaned into his arms. “Who says they’ll let you have a say, any say at all? Why can’t they just throw me back into the facility? It’d be easier...” he kissed at his collarbone, more to comfort himself than Marion.

“I’d get my ass kicked in any prison, and they don’t trust me enough to put me in a regular facility, with others... what are the options? What do you see that I don’t?”

Marion let out a small breath at the kiss, letting one arm encircle his waist while the other hand grabbed gently onto his forearm, rubbing a thumb over the raised goosebumps he found through the other marks. "Those are all the umbrella options. The law has to make room for exceptions sometimes; you are an incredible individual, and an exception," He replied calmly. "So I intend to make room for that however necessary, and whoever has an issue with that can take it up with me. I was looking into educational rehabilitation before...all this happened. It seems to me if you were allowed to pick up where you left off with your college work, provided you had secure housing, caretakers, and restriction enough to keep them satisfied- it'd work wonders just to be doing something fulfilling with that prodigy brain of yours. Maybe you could even teach some classes, I don't know. Or you could get into music therapy, or something else altogether. That's what you tried for in the beginning, wasn't it? To help people."

He pulled back, "It was a noble intention, what you wanted as a child. I want to honor that if you’ll still accept my help after all of this. But I understand it’s...a long road to walk. So if you need some time to think about all this...well, that’s why we’re here right now.”

He pressed his palms to his chest, staring up at him in hope. “I-you think they’d let me? After this? You think they’d let me go to a rehabilitation facility?” He kissed his jaw. “I would love that.” His heartbeat calmed down, and so did his breathing. “I’ll probably go back to the facility right after, though, won’t I? I’ll probably be there until you can get me out... okay. That’s okay. We have time, don’t we?” He nuzzled into his shoulder, closing his eyes.

He could picture it. A large room with pictures all over the walls, articles and drawings. Models hanging from the ceiling, while he taught a class through Skype. It sounded like paradise. It sounded  _ safe _ . “I want your marks on my skin.”

"Right," Marion nodded, "I just need some time to verify some things first… double-check some details that might need to be put right."

He blinked at the last part, then laughed faintly, shoulders jerking up ever so slightly with the motion as he nuzzled into the other man, "Oh; yeah, that was what we were talking about," he chuckled, glancing down at the food cans he hadn't disposed of yet. Well- sorting the rest of the food could wait for this. He turned inwards, lips lining up with the man's temple and voice going soft again, "Gods, now that all that's been said… you're so fucking hot."

He let his hands wander up the other's sides to clasp together behind his back, pressed a few short kisses down his jawline before muttering firmly, "Bedroom. I wanna lead up to it proper, I'm not just gonna sink my teeth in."

He giggled. “Excuse me, you’re the hot one here, Mr. tall, dark, and handsome.” He took his hand, tugging him out of the kitchen. “Can I leave some, too? I wanna see what it looks like on you...” he turned around at the doorway, pressing his lips to his in a slow, deep kiss. And he meant every second of it.

His heartbeat quickened again, his chest pressed against Marion’s so hard, he was sure he could feel it. He wanted to tear his shirt off. Wanted to feel the warmth of him. He tugged at the bottom of it experimentally. He didn’t know if Marion was okay with that... 

Marion rolled his eyes to hide the grin he couldn't suppress, opening his mouth to make some retort and getting pulled into a kiss instead. He opted to lean into it, making a point of letting his hair fall into his eyes in a way that would tickle the other's face. He pressed forwards impatiently, shifting an arm under Greyson's knees to scoop him up bridal style and continue on for the bedroom, parting their mouths in the smooth motion, "Yes. Hell fucking yeah, you can mark me," He replied, "I was keeping my shirt on cause you asked me to." 

The bedroom was the other space with a window to the alleyway; he pushed it's curtains closed along the slider with one foot before settling the two of them down onto the mattress, and locking his lips into another kiss with the man without preamble in the dimmed light. 

He wiggled his arms free to press his palms to his cheeks, tilting his head so their mouths interlocked. He wrapped his legs around his waist, tugging him closer with them. “Mine.” He panted into his mouth. “Mine, mine, mine.” He tugged at his shirt, desperate to lift it over his head, forgetting all about the scars. His mind was flooded with Marion, and then nothing, nothing at all. Just the feeling of his hands on his body and he tongue against his. 

And it felt so goddamn wonderful, he’d never be able to stop. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	34. Thank You. For Existing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is long too. Updates might come to a grinding halt- once I run out of pre-written stuff to edit, I’ll be writing as I go like everyone else. For now, here ya go.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Greyson closed his eyes, his lips pressed against the hollow of his throat. “Gods... that was... Gods. That was incredible. Just- incredible. I don’t wanna know why you’re so good at that. I don’t care. It was so, so good...” he giggled a bit. “What a way to lose my virginity... just how I pictured it... I’m glad it was you...” he murmured, drunk on pleasure.

He pressed his palm to the mark on his chest. He couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but think that the mark proved it, proved that Marion was  _ his _ . That’s what he’d intended, when he put it there. It was kind of pretty, that he could paint over it with love, and kind of sick. He couldn’t tell.

Finally catching his breath with one last, shuddering sigh of utter contentment, Marion just hummed in response, nestling the man up against his neck and resting his nose against the still faintly damp hair- loving the scent of his own shampoo being worn by the other. Idly, he mused that they'd definitely both need another bath, and a smile curled upwards at the thought of asking Grey to take it with him but- for now he wanted to enjoy the heat of the after effects.

He rustled drowsily as he felt the hand over his scar. Maybe more than a month ago, Marion would have pulled away, but now, and especially in the moment there wasn't an ounce of fear left in his body to inhibit the quiet laughter. He reached up and pressed his own hand over Greyson's, holding it against his chest. "So...you still think I'm 'probably straight'?" He couldn't help but to tease the other gently, eyes fluttering closed as his grip on lucidity faded into sleepy satisfaction.

He snorted. “I should’ve known. You  _ look _ gay. My gaydar picked it up the second you walked in in normal clothes, but I ignored it. I’m a dumbass, aren’t I?” He pulled his hand away to press a kiss to the mark. “Lemme fix these... lemme fix all of these.” He pressed another kiss to the the scar, and then to another on his chest, to each and every mark he could reach, he pressed a gentle kiss.

“I don’t know how I could’ve done this to such a pretty boy. Although, I suppose I hadn’t seen you without your mask yet, had I? Hadn’t seen those pretty eyes...”

"Guess I shoulda put eyeholes in the visor. S' what I get." Marion rolled back over a little to give Greyson more access, and despite the fact that he'd loved dominating the other man, he couldn't help the little flush of pleasure that livened in his chest at the flattery, shifting back with a snicker as the Greyson's lips touched a sensitive spot on his side. "Anyways, don't beat yourself up. People tell me I'm the whole fuckin' epitome of 'gay and European' just cause I look Italian and speak Italian and occasionally like to fuck the brains out of a cute guy.”

“Anyway, you can't compliment my eyes and not let me talk about yours," He reached up to pull a strand of blond out of the other's face where it had stuck with sweat, tucking it away, "That had to be just… god, the first thing I really, really liked about you as far as physical features go, y'know? You're gorgeous," He murmured, filters still gone by virtue of sex and tiredness.

He blushed a bit, looking down and pressing his lips to another scar. “So you’re telling me that when you walked in, and saw me having a breakdown without my mask for the first time, all you could think was ‘Gods, he’s got pretty eyes?’”

He giggled, then traced his tongue over his chest idly. “You  _ are _ the epitome of gay and European, and you. Are. Perfect.”

“My perfect.” He sat up, straddling his hips. “My perfect little hero.”

Marion spluttered out an embarrassed bit of laughter, bucking his hips up weakly when Greyson's tongue got too close to his nipple. A trace of nervousness flickered into his eyes, warring with the darker shade his face had flushed, and he hesitated a second or two before whispering out, "You really… you mean that as a  _ compliment, _ don't you? You're not actually trying to get something outta me," he realized with a wondering breath. 

“Marion, no... you’re my hero. You’re perfect. You’re the lover that comes with the apartment upstate. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted. All I want is for you to love me back.” He sat up. “I do love you. I’m certain of it. Pretty certain. I’m not quite sure... how love works.”

He nodded, taking the answer for what it was with an adoring smile as he stared up at the man. He tossed his arms up over his head to bunch under the pillow, a carelessly thoughtful gesture. "Not sure I'm the most qualified to answer, but..." He turned his head into his arm, and closed his eyes for a second to think. "Love is… the passion. The desire, the feeling, the infatuation and the honeymoon phase. It's the friendship and the commitment, the loyalty. The feeling that you're gonna stick around no matter what. It's the discipline to rough it out, the patience to wait, the flexibility to change.

"It's knowing that you're gonna become a new person every day, and that you're gonna wake up to someone who changes to a new person every day, and being able to fall for them over and over again. It's wanting to cherish their body as carefully as you do your own. It's the ability to forgive the flaws that don't matter and to fight against the ones that do. To have understanding when someone hurts you in the horrible ways they can when they hold your heart, and mercy when they realize what they've done."

The blue in Marion's eyes had softened to a longing, distant smile. "It's the ache that comes from knowing that you'll live for someone, and die for someone, and that you'll never be able to articulate just how much you wanna make their life better. That's what love is, to me at least."

He laid against his chest, his shoulders rising and falling with short, sharp breaths. “It sounds beautiful.” He said through his tears. “It sounds absolutely beautiful... I never pictured it like that...” his hair fell into his face and over his cheeks. He didn’t care. Love... love sounded incredible. It sounded like something he wanted, something he’d always wanted and never had. He couldn’t help but be jealous that Marion had to have loved someone before him to know this. All he could do was hope that Marion felt the same way about him. “...Let’s go take a bath.”

Opening his eyes up, Marion shot him a pseudo peeved look that hadn't an ounce of venom to it, "Hey, I was gonna ask that first," he protested, but it melted at the sight of the other man and he reached down to brush the tears away. A faint grunt escaped as he pushed himself up to one elbow and sat up, "But… okay," the man smiled, tweaking Greyson's nose lightly before he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and hesitated, "Er… I'll carry you." He turned to bundle the man's legs and shoulders up underneath his arms, murmuring a slight apology as it jostled the bite mark. "Don't want your legs giving out," he explained as he exited the bedroom into the brighter hallway. "Tends to happen if your spot gets hit right on the first time. I think we'll do epsom salts too, yeah?"

He looked offended. “I’m a grown man, excuse you. I think I can walk.” But he snuggled into him anyway. They’d have to clean the bedroom up later, but he didn’t mind. It had felt good. The after effects felt good. It all had felt so, so good.

"Bet you can't. Not after I've just finished fucking your lights out, bottom," He quipped back lightly as he stepped through the bathroom door. He set the other down to flick the lights on, bathroom mirror still holding condensation as he went to flip the spout on again.

He huffed, crossing his arms, but he couldn’t hide the smile. “I’m not a bottom. Technically, you were on the bottom.” Almost instantly after he was set on the bathroom counter, he attempted to lift himself off, crumpling as soon as any weight was placed on his legs. “Shit!” He cried.

Marion rolled his eyes with a droll hum, "Oh, yeah. Remind me to switch that up next time, it's probably how you used up most of your stamin-oomf!"

He broke off with a hasty grunt, turning just in time to catch the other man against his chest. Marion shifted the weight to regain his balance, and make a disapproving noise, lowering Greyson down to the edge of the tub instead, "What did I say? Stay put, let me take care of you," He ordered firmly, going to dig out the bath salts and toss in a generous portion of the bag into the rising water.

“I didn’t expect to fall like that... where’d my muscle go? It’s like there’s nothing there at all. How long until this wears off?” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust him, he just... didn’t like the idea of being helpless. Of actually needing someone to care for him. He didn’t like the idea of not being able to run.

He glanced up at him, then looked down to rub his thighs. Five thin cuts lined the insides of them.

Crouching in front of one of the drawers, Marion dug around a while longer until he found a bottle of cinnamon colored soap, and he edged over to put his legs into the water next to Greyson with a soft hum, recognizing the nerves for what they were, "Don't worry. Your body's just pumping out a lot of extra chemicals right now, so it saps energy from the rest of you. The bath will help, and this-" He squirted the soap into the water, smiling as it began to foam up and tinge the air with cedar and cloves, and slipping into the steaming pool, "Will help the nerves calm. You should be right as rain by the time we're clean."

He slipped in after him, setting his chest against his, his head on his shoulder. “I hope so... I wish I knew this before we did that.” He curled up against him, taking in the smell of soap and Marion, and the feeling of the water against his body, washing away the sweat. His hair was still damp from his first bath, and it was halfway through drying in an absolute mess. He burrowed further into him.

Marion gave a faint grimace in sheepish sympathy, water splashing and rolling under their chest level as he shifted to tangle their legs together a little. "Sorry. You should probably know that it's gonna be sore for a day or so. But if it helps, it's usually just the first time," He murmured, pulling some water up in cupped hands to pour over Greyson's shoulders, wetting the area there to get rid of the congealing trail of burgundy staining the skin. He skirted around the agitated areas carefully, finding a tense knot in the muscles and starting to work them out carefully under his thumbs.

He closed his eyes, his shoulders unraveling under his hands. He never wanted this to end, but he knew that he’d probably have to go back tomorrow. They couldn’t stay here. Just the thought of the facility, and the itchy, white clothes made him sick. He pressed a kiss to his throat. 

The man tipped his head back, giving room and falling silent so it was just the running water and the splashing. He stayed up against the other until he had to stop the faucet before it overflowed, and then he ducked his head under the water, and came back up soaking and gasping a little at the heat of it.

He came up behind Greyson, leaning down to put his mouth on the nape of his neck and stay there for a few seconds, "Wet your hair. I'll wash it for you," He offered, reaching for the shampoo. It didn't need much, but there was a little blood drying in the strands that needed to be cleansed.

Adrenaline rushed through his body the second his head went under. He pushed his hands into his lap and forced himself to watch, forced himself to remember that not everyone had the same thoughts he did. The gasping didn’t do anything to help. He was still trying to calm himself down when he bent over to duck his long hair in the water. He wrapped his arms around himself, head down so Marion could wash his hair.

He squirted a few pumps of product out, warmed it in his hands, and began to work it into Greyson's hair. Perhaps the soap had just been an excuse, because he spent his time running through the wet locks, combing it out in his fingers, and working a massage into his scalp. He moved down from there, reworking his fingers lightly into his neck, and then down to his back, reaching over to the other bottle again to massage some of the nerve calming soap into his back too. The salts combined with it should at least take the soreness down a notch.

Once he was through, he mumbled a short, "Rinse," tugging almost imperceptibly at Grey's hair, and pulling in a breath to sink back under himself.

He bent over and rubbed his scalp to get the soap out. He didn’t say anything. He just wanted Marion to hold him, he just wanted to curl into bed with him and never let go.

Once he sat back up, he turned around and curled into his arms, climbing into his lap. “I don’t wanna go back... I don’t wanna go back to the facility... not after this... you’re so warm, and it’s so cold there...”

Marion let a small sigh escape him; the heat and balms and touching were dragging him into drowsiness again, and he just curled around the other man, putting his arms around him, wet and warm with steam roiling off his biceps as he squeezed Greyson against himself for a moment. "I know. I know it's hard going back to reality after finding a haven," he whispered simply.

“When do we go back? When do we have to?”  _ How long do I have with you _ , was what he was asking.  _ How long can I hold you and keep you and never let you go. How long is our forever. _ He reached a hand up into his hand, twirling the strands. “It’s not curly. It’s wrong.”

Marion let his head pull away so he could feel the gentle pressure of his hair being tugged, then reached for the shampoo, to work it into his own pitch dark hair. "I… was thinking tomorrow, any time after lunch," he replied in a low tone. "Preferably after dark. I don't want to cause a scene in public.”

Greyson let out a breath at the latter part, but pulled his hands away so he could wash his hair. “After dark... would probably be best. We wouldn’t have to deal with reporters- well, I wouldn’t. You’d probably be swamped in the morning...” he played with his hair more than washed it, really.

Marion just sagged down a little in the water, rested his arms up on the cold ledge of the tub to let Greyson mess with his hair as long as he wanted. "Yep. That's… probably what would happen in any case," he hummed, weary just for thinking about it. Marion didn't like that kind of attention; didn't like feeling like he was put on a platform for the rest of the world to analyze, but he got by it most times by telling himself that they needed someone to prove that things were gonna be okay. He'd have to check the news before they left, he thought belatedly… see how the NHU was handling their little gallivant outside the law.

He shook his head and smiled back up at Greyson, "Anyway, the time's too precious to spend moping. I'll bet they've left the groceries I ordered outside the door; I wanna make an uptown style dinner for tonight. After we have a nap, because you're too good at sex it's unfair you were a virgin."

_ Were a virgin. _ Oh, it was just now hitting him. He was 23, and a former villain, and he’d just lost his virginity to his main rival. It was... surreal, to say the least.

He laughed a bit. “I didn’t do anything. You just kinda held me there. Felt good, though...” he sat on his stomach as he played with his hair, twirling it, and using the soap to pull it all up into a Mohawk. He pressed a kiss to his nose. “You should wear it like this from now on. You look good.”

“Can I cook with you? I think that’d be fun. Does what you have planned have anything to do with flour? Cause if it does, it’s going to be in your hair. You have no say in this.”

Marion snorted a laugh, trying and failing to bat his hands away while still supporting them on the edge of the tub. "Dick. I'll have you know that the only reason I've been allowing you to ruin my hairstyles is because I like you too much. Don't push your luck, my pomade is shipped from fucking Malibu and it's the only luxury- besides your company- that I allow myself in my endless martyrdom of a career. And yes, I would like your help with dinner. How does cannelloni sound?"

“Then don’t use any. Are you making it from scratch? Cause I’m gonna get flour. In your hair. It’s too pretty. I’ve gotta ruin it.” He pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, using it so he could ruffle his hair without Marion stopping him. “I only love you for your hair. It’s my big secret.”

The man huffed (It wasn't a pout. He was a full grown adult, and he didn't pout-) into the kiss with an indignant noise, tossing his head back in mock despair, "Oof, ow, ouch, you didn't even like the sex? My manhood's never gonna recover from that one. Cruel, the ways you toy with my heart,  _ il mio amore _ ."

He laughed and kissed him again. “Okay,  _ maybe _ the sex was okay. I don’t exactly have anything to compare it to, though. Lemme just go hook up a few times, and I’ll get back to you. You can rinse your hair out now.” He rubbed his thumb over the bite in Marion’s shoulder. It’d scar, and for once, he was proud of it.

"Like hell you'll go find someone else to be a fucktoy with," Marion glared a little, honestly surprised at the twinge of jealousy- he typically wasn't a possessive man. Maybe Greyson just pushed the right buttons. He turned his head away to grumble off a little of the abashedness, then turned back to the blond, "Hey, what was bothering you the first time I went under? Don't think I missed the look you gave me. Was like you wanted to peg me all over again."

He blushed a bit, hugging him again. Fuck, he thought he was in the clear. “I don’t know... something made me think... you were going to try something. Cause I wanted to. When I was in here.” He mumbled, hiding his face in his shoulder. He couldn’t help the thoughts, the thoughts that Marion would judge him or decide he was too much work or just leave him altogether.

Marion tilted his head slowly to accommodate it, "IIIII...can't tell whether you're talking about a blowjob or-"

He paused. Stilled "Oh. You meant… when you were  _ alone _ in here." For a long time, Marion was silent, and then his arms pulled around the other man fiercely, as if he wanted to protect him from everything, everyone. Even himself. His breath hitched a little as he pressed their chests together, found Greyson's hand and laced their fingers and squeezed so hard he could feel the other man's pulse through it.

_ "Thank you," _ Marion whispered softly, into his ear, "Thank you so much for staying alive, Greyson. Thank you so, so much… for living through it even though you were tired. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for letting me in and trusting me and letting me find out how wonderful you are. If you'd given up I wouldn't have ever- have ever known who you are and now that I do, I don't think I'd wanna live my life without having had the chance to see you more," He said, some unnamed emotion making his tone strained. "Thank you. For existing. For everything you are. Thank you for not killing yourself."

His shoulders tensed as he felt his arms around him. For a while, he stayed like that. Frozen. And then, slowly, his hands lifted and tangled in his hair again. He smelled strongly of his shampoo, and a bit like sex.

“I... wanted to quit... I  _ want _ to quit. I still do... you make me want to go on, Marion.” His voice finally broke. “And to be honest, I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. I- you shouldn’t want me. You shouldn’t have stayed in the first place, you had no reason to help me whatsoever. You could’ve left me to rot, and you didn’t, and- I thank you for that... I thank you, for being the better man, because without you...” he patted his back a couple times, his hand balling into a fist. “I’d still be tearing at my skin in a white room with explosive panic attacks and nurses who are too scared to come in to my room. It’s not me, it’s nothing about me. I’m so, so weak... you saved my life. More times than I care to count...”

The water was getting lukewarm. Marion glanced around them, at the light reflecting off the little ripples their movements made, and pulled in a quiet breath. "We're friends, right? Friends don't keep count. Friends don't leave each other. They forgive. They save each other's lives as many times as it takes. I've wanted to be your friend as long as I can remember, ever since we first met. And I wanna be your friend for as long as I live. I want what's best for you. I want to introduce you to the people and the places and the things that will make the road worth it along the way, even if it is still hard. I know it's not my choice in the end. I know it's a huge thing to ask of you. I know you have heavy weights you have to bear. But I wanna… help you look forwards now, instead of back. Until you get to a point you realize you can see in you what I do, and that you are even more."

He took a deep breath and pushed himself under the water, rinsing out his hair and standing up, sending rivulets of water sluicing out of his hair, down the muscled figure as he stepped out of the bath and offered a hand. "And you don't have to give me an answer, now or ever. Just stay. Just think about it."

“I-“ He cut himself off. Marion didn’t want a response. He just wanted to be heard out. Accepted. “I...Okay. Okay.” He used his hand to pull himself up, still using him to support his weight. He didn’t collapse again, but Marion had been right when he said Greyson would be sore. He was extremely sore, and... that made him smile. Just a little bit

“I don’t want to think about that anymore. What was it you said about a nap? A nap sounds good. I think you were sort of crushing me last night, and my head was hanging off the edge. I could use some solid sleep.”

"Sounds like heaven," Marion agreed, returning the smile, just a little acknowledgement of the man's request to not push the subject tinging it as he turned to grab a towel and toss it to Greyson, taking another for himself to ruffle briskly through his dripping hair and sling loosely around his waist. He couldn't help leaning in to kiss gently along a line of purple bruising under his collarbone, admiring with his lips what he'd done to the blond. "The covers need to be changed, though, and I wanna see if the groceries are there."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	35. Flour. In. Your. Hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one isn’t too eventful, so you could probably skip it if you want, but it’s fluffy so it’s up to you guys. I, personally, love my fluffy boys.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

“Okay. Where are the spares? I can change them while you grab the groceries.” He tilted his head back, allowing him to kiss over his chest. He did his best to forget about everything else, and just think about Marion. About this, here and now. He rubbed his hair with the towel, creating a big poof of hair.

"Uhh… bedroom closet, top shelf. Might be buried in old college stuff cause I don't usually need three linen changes but just toss whatever aside. Thanks, baby," Marion pulled away with a smile and went to grab at least a pair of boxers before he opened the apartment door. The scent of sweat, blood and sex was still cloying in the bedroom so he pulled a window open, tapping a bug off the screen outside before heading for the front entrance, which was really tucked off to the corner by the kitchen.

He went to grab new sheets, stealing the one (1) hoodie from his closet while he did, and another pair of boxers. The thick cloth smelled like him, just faintly, and it was perfect. He reveled in the idea of the hoodie smelling like him once he gave it back, and Marion wearing it for the scent.

The groceries were outside, as he'd predicted, packed neatly in paper bags, except- "Oh, what the FUCK." Marion gave a muffled curse from the other room, pulling in the last of the packages to set down on the counter with a thump. He crossed over into the bedroom, "Get a load of this, the neighbors left a note. They stole our  _ grapes _ . Told me to use a gag on you next time too. Who the fuck steals grapes?! Why wouldn't they take the wine instead?"

He gave an huff, the picture of domestic indignation that melted in surprise when he saw the hoodie. Slight forgotten, he broke into a little smile, "Goddamit. You beat me to it."

“Grapes? They were upset I was being loud so they took  _ grapes _ ? The fuck?” He took the note from his hand. “Ooh, I’ve got an idea. Which wall are they against?” He lowered his voice. “We can do a “round two”. Fake moans, all the stops. Slam me against it. That’ll teach them for stealing your grapes.” He pulled the hood over his head and gave an exaggerated evil smirk.

He blinked, and the grin grew; the effigy of a gleeful frat boy about to pull a prank. "Oh, my god Grey you're the  _ best _ ," Marion claimed, more than amenable to following through if it meant he got to push the blond against the wall. He stepped forwards to tuck damp hair behind Greyson's ear, further into the hoodie and pushed into a deep kiss, hands finding their way under the hoodie's hem to his hip to guide him into the wall with a thud that reverberated a little and a laugh that sounded genuine.

He let out an exaggerated gasp. “M-Mari, we just got out of the bath, we’re gonna need to take another one all over again-“ but he pressed his lips back against his, pushing forward only to fall back against the wall again. He jumped to wrap his legs around his hips. “Marion!”

His laughter chimed like so many bells and he used the shift in position to wrap his hands under the man's ass, hiking him up higher and slamming him back again, "Don't worry. I'll be careful," He replied with a snicker, before giving a  _ very _ convincing imitation of someone who'd just lost control of all restraint, a loud gasp and a groan taking the volume up, "Holy  _ shit _ , baby, you're a fucking angel," He moaned theatrically, merriment twinkling in his eyes as he leaned over to kiss at his jawline again.

He tilted his head back and let out a cry of faux pleasure. “Th-that’s not careful- Fuck!” He slammed shoulders against the wall. “M-Mari, fuck, Mari!” He smirked, instead tilting his head so he could kiss his lips. “Gods, you’re so fucking strong!”

Marion leaned into the kiss with a strangled noise that rivaled Dionysus' victims, and set a rhythmic thumping to the wall where his knee could most easily reach it, which was between the other man's legs. It didn't take long for a muffled shout to come from the window of the neighboring apartment, something along the lines of shutting the goddamn fuck up, and Marion couldn't hold his amusement in longer. "Enjoy the grapes, paddy bastard," he yelled back through their own screen, grinning as he pulled Greyson off the wall and fell back into the bed, nestling into the pillows as he stared up at the man on his chest. "You called me Mari… for the first time, I think," He noted with a pleased smile.

He curled up in his arms, the hood falling over his eyes. “It suits you. It’s cute. Although ‘daddy’ probably would’ve annoyed the neighbors more, wouldn’t it?” He tugged at the covers, pulling it over both of them. “Wait, nevermind. They suggested you gag me? They’re probably pretty kinky.”

"Pretty sure they're running some orgy cult. They had a weird party last time I was here, did some voodoo stuff on the roof that left it stinking the day after. Guess this was revenge?" Marion chuckled at the thought, laughter finally quieted and fading into some pleasant afterthought of a peacefulness. A faint breeze had fought it's way down the alley and it rustled the curtains, and he embraced Grey a little more snugly, holding the warmth between them under the blankets. "V' never gagged anyone anyway," he mumbled, rolling his eyes a little with a bit of sleepy flirting. "Too nice to hear a voice. 'Specially one begging for more."

He smiled. “I believe you, Marion.” He kissed him one more time before he snuggled up against him, almost completely hidden under the blankets. “I love you...” he whispered, closing his eyes. His fatigue was catching up with him. He was content.

Marion let his eyes sag shut, yawning and giving a low, sweet hum in response- brain going foggy with drowsiness the second he let it rest. He knew that the two of them were gonna be starving when they awoke, and sore in more than one place, but somehow the thought only made things more pleasant as he ran his hands over the other's back in wide circles, an absent motion that trailed off as he fell into sleep.

He fell asleep against him, without nightmares purely because he had Marion with him, holding him. The hoodie smelled like him, and he smelled like him, and he didn’t have to think about anything else, and it was perfect.

The little slice of domestic bliss wore around the edges, fading into some soft cornered stretch of time that ebbed longer out, passing slowly like the shadows that fell into the room from the sun arcing overhead. Marion murmured faintly in his sleep, arms tightening around Greyson as his head turned into the pillows and cast raven curls over his closed eyes. A seagull landed on some portion of the fire escape outside, calling out once or twice before it was chased away by someone else in the complex with a crumpled up hamburger wrapper as a projectile. For all the world just a lazy afternoon, a sweet banana-pancakes kind of solitude held by the two souls in the backstreet wharf side apartment.

He slept for a while, a few hours. They hadn’t set an alarm, but as the sun fell, light fell into his eyes, and he woke up. He pulled himself up and pressed a kiss to Marion’s lips, a small smile on his face. “Let’s go make dinner. I wanna put flour in your hair.”

It took the man a while to pull himself out of semi-consciousness; he stirred and woke to lips on his, and pressed back into it like it was as natural as breathing, mumbling something incomprehensible around it. "Mmph," Marion complained matter-of-factly, hands fisting loosely into the hoodie's front to try and pull Greyson back down with him. "Can't make me," he huffed, sliding further under the blankets.

He huffed, but stood and padded to the kitchen, successfully finding a bag of flour and taking it back to the bedroom. “I’m gonna get flour in your hair. It’s up to you if you want me to get it on the sheets and carpet too.”

Cracking his eyes open, he gave Greyson a bleary squint, then moaned, throwing a hand over his eyes. "You're literally Satan," he hummed, dragging himself up, and rolling out of bed to come and make a half baked effort at stealing the bag from Greyson, "I'm here. Take me prisoner, carry me off to the kitchen or whatever. Just don't mess my hair up after I just cleaned," he bargained drowsily, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

He snatched it away, taking his hand instead and pulling him to the kitchen. He then took a handful of flour and threw it directly in his face. “I don’t go back on my promises. Flour. In. Your. Hair.

Marion choked on flour, blinking it out of his eyes as he stumbled back a pace and clutched the breakfast bar, "What the hell--!? You son of a mother's fucker, that wasn't my hair," he yelped, breaking into a surprised bark of laughter, and surging forwards to grab Greyson around the waist, grappling for the flour in earnest now and managing to at least get a handful, which he promptly shoved down the hoodie.

He giggled sharply, most of the flour coming out the bottom and powdering his bare legs. His flour-covered hands reached up to run through his hair, even as Marion’s arm was wrapped around his waist. “You’re adorable!”

"You're a giant brat," Marion shot back, puffing the white powder dusting his face off and licking it from his lips, and shaking his head in exasperation, mostly because of Greyson, and Greyson's hands in his hair, and Greyson's beautiful laugh, and partly because he couldn't even muster up enough annoyance to keep from laughing himself. He used the opportunity to spin around and hedge the blond back against the counter, one hand gripping its ledge on either side of his waist, "You shoulda used sugar. This would've tasted better," He hummed, before pressing into a deep, slow kiss.

He gasped into it, his hands gripping tighter in his hair. “Sugar doesn’t stick. If it threw it at you it’d just fall to the floor sadly.” His face was inches from Marion’s. “I’ve thought this out.”

"My Promethean nemesis strikes again," Marion drawled sarcastically, "And did you have a plan for when I inevitably pinned you down and prepared to unleash my vengeance?"

“Yes. It’s called ‘staring at your hair.’ Cause gods, this is exactly as cute as I thought it would be.” He kissed his cheek again, wrapping his legs around his hips.

Marion quickly shifted his hand from where it was sneaking back over to the flour bag to around Greyson's waist to stabilize the added weight, rolling his eyes as his payback was foiled. "You just like getting carried around," he grumbled, shaking flour out of his hair in a poof of white and straightening up again.

He laughed. “Maybe. I like that you’re strong enough to. What were we going to make for dinner? What time is it?” He pulled himself up to sit on the counter.

"Yes, that probably is a good reason, and it's… around seven thirty, I think, cause the sun's down. And it was spinach ricotta cannelloni, lamb on the side, and a cheeseboard, except that won't be remotely the same without those grapes. Oh, and Merlot." The man grew serious again, pulling back to go rummage in the grocery bags and start pulling things out, immediately distracted from the powder still dusted through his hair like a light blanket of snow. "Usually the date comes before the sex, but better late than never I guess. This shouldn't take too long to cook, thank fates. Can you preheat the oven?"

“We don’t need those fucking grapes. I’m sure the neighbors had a fun time shoving them up their asses.” He stood up, completely ignoring the flour down his shirt, and went to turn the oven on. “How hot?” He couldn’t stop staring at the flour in his hair. It contrasted the curls perfectly. He wanted to touch it again.

They were just finishing up cooking, and with nothing left to do, he set his chin on his shoulder, watching him plate it. His kisses trailed up and down his neck, humming contentedly. “This looks delicious.”

Marion was fairly used to cooking for himself but it was mostly practical, out-the-door meals, so it was fun to take more time making the food classy. As classy as it could get while he was working in his underwear, that was. The man drizzled a last minute garnish over the second plate, making a gratified little noise in the back of his throat and arching into the kisses a bit, "You haven't seen anything. We've got cheesecake for dessert," he hummed lightly, "Wanna eat in here or on the roof? I'm gonna get some pants on either way."

“The roof. I want to eat on the roof with you. You said the sun was down? I want to see the stars...” he needed to get pants on too, that was for certain. “You didn’t tell me we had cheesecake. I’ve never had cheesecake... what flavor did you get?”

"You've never-" Marion broke off, and gave him a solemn look, "Greyson, this might be the most important 'first' you're gonna be sharing with me today. It's a mix, there's raspberry, regular and mango chocolate. But that comes after. Hold on."

He went off to the bedroom to pull on a pair of loose sleeping pants, and a shirt which he didn't bother buttoning up. Padding barefoot back into the living area, he picked up his plate and went to fiddle clumsily with the window latch of the pane out to the fire escape.

Fuck pants. He didn’t care who saw him, and the sweatshirt covered enough. He followed him out, taking his plate and silverware with him. “I love you, Marion. You’re such a dumbass, and I love you so, so much.” He kissed his jaw, then his cheek. “I wanna try cheesecake with you.”

Marion laughed, shoulders shaking as he let the wind muss his hair, "I am a dumbass, glad we're laying down the groundwork here, lover mine." He stepped aside to give the man room to step up, and carefully made the ascent up the narrow steel steps to the roof. He'd clumsily shoved the cutlery, cups, and wine bottle into the large pockets so he wouldn't have to make a second trip so he just set it all down on the brick casements and helped Greyson up, grasping his hand tightly. Once he was up, he pressed a return kiss to the man's forehead. "How're the stars tonight, in your opinion?"

“Almost as pretty as you.” He said with a cheesy grin. He helped him set everything up, then sat down by his side. “I never want to go back. Never, ever, ever.”

"You would not be so quick to call me pretty if you knew what it did to my heart," Marion quipped, looking chuffed all the same as he pulled out the wine to read the label. He shot a rueful glance over to the other man, and sighed a little, starting to open it up. "Yeah… you know, New York will always need more heroes, but god damn if I don't love being just yours."

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	36. Cheesecake and Merlot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, it’s been a bit since I posted last! Haven’t been writing a ton, so I’ve got no motivation to edit, but here! 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He sighed, leaning on him. “We should eat before the food gets cold.” He leaned forward to take a bite. Sitting here with him was bittersweet, so, so bittersweet. It was wonderful, and yet... it couldn’t last.

Marion hummed, leaning back into him and spearing a bit of food. He turned his eyes back up to the heavens, automatically searching out and cataloguing the constellations, to see which were out for the night. The moon was waning, but still bright, and it made for a pleasant atmosphere as they ate. But it was silent too; Marion couldn't help glancing back over at the blond, lost in thought and left to dread the future.

He set his things aside eventually, murmuring a quick excuse and going off and coming back with the cheesecake. "Here it is! Ready to step into a whole new perspective of existence?" He chimed brightly, albeit quietly as he re-ascended the steps.

He giggled a bit, taking a sip of wine. “I think that happened when you fucked me. But sure.” Just sitting there without him for a bit had made him think about the survival rate of jumping from this height, so he was glad to have him back. He licked his fork clean. “Come kiss me first, though. You were gone for too long.”

"Awe, don't stroke my ego, it'll make me wanna do it again," Marion gave him a dark, flirty grin as he crossed over with the cake and set it down, gently grabbing onto the blond's arms to pull him into a kiss. "Mm, you taste like a damn good vintage," He pulled back with a chuckle, "Okay, you gotta pick your first flavor wisely. It could change the color of your entire life henceforward so it's an important choice. Raspberry, Mango chocolate or the good ole original."

He smiled, kissing him back, practically surging forward into his arms. “Mango and chocolate sounds like a crappy combination... mm... raspberry.” He pulled himself into his lap. He wasn’t wearing any pants, of course. Just a pair of Marion’s boxers.

Though not a lightweight by nature, the wine and the sight of the other man, combined with the ease he climbed into Marion's lap made him want to kiss Greyson for much longer than he had, but he contented himself for the moment with a laugh and a brush of his lips over his cheek. Lifting out a piece, he shook his head, "I've got nothing against it. But you definitely picked right. Raspberry's may favorite too," he hummed, taking a bite and then putting it to Greyson's lips.

He took a bite, then pressed his lips to Marion’s, his eyes closed, savoring it between them. He was still for a lot longer than he needed to be before pulling away. “Mm. That’s really good... like, really, really good.” He tilted his head. “Where the fuck has this been all my life?”

"Same place it's always been. Just now you've found it," Marion let his eyes stay closed for a second even after the kiss ended, then smiled at Greyson, leaning back to plunder the cake for his own slice, and then shifting to turn up to look at the stars through the few puffy clouds. The spring night air was a cool anecdote against the balmy heat still leeching back out of the asphalt streets below. Someone, somewhere down on the fire escapes was plucking at a guitar; the same dog from earlier barked until an angry yell quieted the din. The traffic noises and voices were the same save for the occasional drunken yell from the nightlife crowd. New York never slept; and Marion stared up at the sky, resting his back against the roof and drinking it all in.

He took another bite, leaning against him and staring up at the stars. He said nothing. He thought nothing. He didn’t need to. He had Marion, and that was enough. This was enough.

He took another bite, then kissed him so the taste mingled between their lips. He still hadn’t gotten over how wonderful the feeling was, to have another in his arms, sharing the most intimate interaction. “I love you.”

Reaching up, he brushed a few stray crumbs of cake off the corner of Greyson's mouth with a soft smile, then took his hands and kissed his fingertips gently, where the redness still was where he’d accidentally burned himself making dinner. "Hope these feel better," he mumbled, shaking a curl out of his eyes. His hair had dried loose and soft, contrasting Greyson's blond except where the remnants of flour powdered it.

“I-I’ve felt worse...” he fumbled over his words, watching him with a slightly open mouth. His other hand subconsciously reached up to run through his hair, covered in flour that wouldn’t come out so easily. He looked surreal, and Greyson loved it. Loved him. Loved him so much, it left an ache in the pit of his stomach and a flutter in his chest. The thought of leaving him... he couldn’t think about it.

The gentle touches and smiles, the shared laughter, the lulling ambience blended in with the torturous temptation of what could've been, and as Marion sat up a little more, there was a sensation of acrid beauty to it, like the violent reality of what a star was up close. He set his food down and shook off the clinging crumbs. "Wanna go to bed soon?" 

He nodded, but didn’t make a move to get out of his lap. Didn’t make a move to let him up. He pressed his lips to his cheek, his temple, his jaw. “I’m scared.” He whispered, and there was more truth behind it than he’d like. “I don’t ever want this to end.”

Eyes falling halfway closed, he shifted his gaze out to the bay far beyond the dark silhouette of the buildings. “Yeah,” Marion sighed softly, just a single drop in the quiet.    
  
And that was all he said, out loud.

But his hands sought out Greyson’s and when he found them he pulled back, and pulled them to his lips, some desperate torrid fervency breaking in his eyes and he kissed his knuckles, softly.    
_ It’s gonna be okay. Someday, it’ll all be okay,  _ they said, and it was a promise and a plea and a prayer all in one, rolled up into the look he gave the other man as they shared body warmth and sorrow.

He held his gaze for a long moment. Squeezed his hand and shared the hope he felt. He was lost, and found at the same time. He couldn’t tell where Marion ended and he began, and he didn’t care. 

Finally, he set his head against Marion’s shoulder, the hood of Marion’s old college sweatshirt falling loosely behind him. “We should go to bed...”

At some point, Marion realized, maybe in the past month or even through the whirlwind of action and shared tenderness- that he could really see Greyson's soul- the way it moved through his limbs to elect his movements and the fleeting substance of each emotion in his expressions. The hope and despair in tandem, the etched dispirit interrupted in turn by glimpses of a bright, sunny person no amount of folly fraught life could seem to break out of him.

Greyson was nothing like the villain he'd fought for so long, fought not to demonize in his head. This man was newly introduced to light; blinking against it but still trying to see, fumbling to learn love, childish and yet weathered for how much he'd suffered. Pressing, reaching for the warmth of a human connection, until their bodies had entwined guilelessly to know the other in the flesh filled natural way a lover would. 

It ached. He knew he held someone precious in his arms. But Greyson didn't. Not yet, not here. 

Marion nodded, rearranged his grip on worn fabric and bare legs, and stood up with the blond, leaving behind wine and cheesecake. The birds could clean it up or he could later, it didn't matter. Turning for the fire escape, he mumbled a short, "M' a little wine drunk. Might kiss you extra hard once we get to bed."

His legs fumbled to get a grip on his hips, entwining them behind his back so he wouldn’t slip, and yet he still did. One hand snakes up to his hair, running through the dark curls that still held remnants of the flour he’d thrown at him. 

His sweatshirt slipped down, showing the bandage wrapped around his shoulder where Marion’s mark had torn through his skin. It was going to scar. Maybe not as deeply or harshly as the rest of the marks on his body, but it would scar. It would stay in his skin as proof of Marion’s love for him. Proof that there was someone who loved him. 

It was a shame he couldn’t display it without exposing the rest of the scars. That was okay. It was for him, and him alone.

Marion closed his eyes and let his training guide him the last few steps down the fire escape, iron strong and unyielding under his feet. He hadn't really used his powers since coming here, and it wasn't an intentional thing. But some weird, deep part of him wanted it to stay that way for some reason- at least until they had to go so he took the extra time to open the window again himself and climb into the room, finding his way through the apartment to the bathroom so they could brush their teeth before climbing into bed. 

Once he was settling Greyson down onto the pillows, he found that something- perhaps the heaviness of coming separation- was weighing on him the closer and closer they got to tomorrow. It was exhausting in its own right; it made him want to bury his head in someone else and drown out the disquieting thoughts. 

Instead he settled into kissing him again, a drawn out string of languid, pressing touches that left warm spots exposed to the air when he pulled away from his skin; like he knew it now, knew it from their hungry exploration earlier and now wanted, simply enough, to treasure it where he could touch. 

He kissed back lazily, his knees bent and separated slightly so Marion could slot between them. He didn’t have to think, and so he didn’t. He didn’t think about what would happen to them. He just thought about their lips pressed together, as if they were made for him. 

“I love you.” He mumbled against his lips, their breath and saliva mixing. “I love you so much. So, so much...” he silenced himself with another kiss. He needed this. He needed him.

And it just so happened that, because he had been pushing his thoughts away, they all flooded him at once. Marion had to leave him. He had to go back to the cell. It was going to be worse this time, he could feel it. He had something to leave this time. He had something to care about. His hands squeezed his waist, and tears mingled in with their kiss.

He turned his head in to help smother the pain. Grey's words wracked his lungs with a pang, left them begging for breath that he wouldn't take until he felt the other's tears falling to his own cheeks and pulled apart at their seams, just a little. 

Their breath was shared, snatched from each others mouths and he tangled his legs sinuously around Greyson's, pushed through the pain that ground at his throat until his voice was left soft and sanded around the edges, "Sleep, darling. Spend your tears if you must, but let me kiss them away so you can sleep in the end." 

There was a thin thread of saliva connecting them still and he closed in again before it could snap, locking love firmly in between their bodies and flicking it in a smooth, fragile motion into Grey's mouth with his tongue.

He whimpered, but his arms fell limp at his sides, his hands just barely brushing his hips. He allowed his chest to press against his, allowed his eyes to flutter shut. He allowed all of these things, but he didn’t allow his thoughts to distract him from reality again. 

He didn’t allow himself to forget for a second that he had to leave him tomorrow. That he had to leave behind this wonderful place and this wonderful man for a cold, bright room that his eyes could only barely stand. He had to leave behind the dark, flour-dusted curls and blue, blue eyes that contrasted each other so wonderfully, had to leave behind the kisses and the brushes of stubble that came with them. He had to leave it all... how could he sleep with such thoughts in his head?

The night wore on; the kissing slowed, down to sleepy caressing until Marion’s head rested on the pillows besides the blond, eyes closed and breathing evening out into the twilight cusp of sleep- the kind of fuzzy consciousness that you never remember the morning after. Body still loose and hands still slung around the other until he was gone.

The man typically didn’t suffer nightmares when he was in bed with someone else, because that usually meant he’d had a distraction while awake to keep his mind from spiraling. He’d found, too often, that his folly wasn’t the physical, but the mental- the drag and tear of inner torment that would dig in like claws to rip him apart more easily than any blow. It was why he liked to feel his scars rather than look at them; when he looked he remembered and it absorbed his mind until he was weak for the pain. In all his life, Marion had never known anything good to come from thinking too much. 

Apparently, he’d passed that threshold, because when he shot awake the next morning, it was riding out the last throes of a threatening dream. Not a full fledged nightmare, just the regular nonsense laced with some bleak edge of reality and swimming memories. His hands were pressed to his throat to quiet the panting and hopefully keep from waking the other. Marion calmed in a few seconds, eyes pulled to the streetlight’s glow seeping in around the curtains and then to a clock. 4:12 a.m. 

They were going back today. 

Right.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	37. Face The Music

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last fluff chapter for a while, so savor it! Don’t read too fast- we’re getting to the torture soon.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

They’d been hiding long enough. There was still work to do. Research and phone calls and, if Marion had learned anything at all in nearly five years working with the law, forms to fill if he wanted to smooth things over when they turned themselves in. 

Glancing down at the sleeping form of the man besides him, Marion let his lips twitch into a little frown, trying to shrug away dreariness and muster the willpower to slide gingerly out from the warm covers into the cool air. He leaned down, smoothing back tousled blond hair to press a slight kiss to Greyson’s forehead, then turning for the living area to hunt for the laptop he’d hidden away with his emergency phone.

They had until that night. 

Until that night to love each other. And then he had to go back. Back to white walls and nameless nurses and bright lights. 

He didn’t wake up until around 8:30, hours after Marion had. His hair was splayed out over the pillow, the hood limp at his back. He yawned, then sat up, a spark of panic shooting through him as he realized Marion wasn’t there. He padded out, the sweatshirt hanging low on his shoulders. 

“Mari?”

At first glance the apartment was empty- empty, but not abandoned, for the laptop still sitting open on the coffee table by the couch, screen lit dimly with a little black hard drive inserted into it. Sunlight fell into the room from the already risen sun, lighting the living room to a cheery glow. Steam escaped some covered dishes on the table, and a pan sizzled on the stove. Bad cooking safety, for Marion was nowhere to be seen, his voice only faintly audible. He was out on the fire escape, talking to someone.

He came back in a second later, swinging lightly in with one hand gripping the window sill and the other holding the phone to his ear, and he halted a second when he saw Greyson- “Yeah, yeah, okay, hey- I gotta go, just  _ don’t _ talk to him yet. Don’t make this any crazier. I’m serious- just- okay, that’s uncalled for. Ouch. And yes, he is, so  _ bye _ . Mm, love ya.”

The man ran a hand through his hair after he’d hung up and tossed the device aside, fixing Greyson with a semi-tired, semi-cheerful tone, “Welcome back to lucidity, we have pancakes- oh, my god. You have the hottest bed hair I’ve ever seen, get over here so I can touch it,” Marion closed the gap between them for a hug that was tighter than could be casual. He pulled away after a second, hesitating a second to look into Greyson’s eyes. “Are you… still feeling sore?”

He practically leaned into his arms in relief- Marion hadn’t abandoned him, and he hadn’t called the cops. Well... that was uncertain. But he didn’t think he’d tell an officer he loved them.

His mind filed through the list of people he could’ve been talking to. He didn’t know enough of Marion’s coworkers to be certain, but his best guess had to be Alex. The thought made his shoulders tense, even as Marion hugged him.

“Just a bit. I’m okay. I’ve felt worse...” he smiled softly as Marion touched his hair- long hair could get messy. Really messy. “Who were you talking to...? I don’t mean to pry, but... are they going to find us?”

The man combed through it once or twice with his fingers, gently untangling a snag or two, and then he reached down to the neckline of the hoodie, tugging it down slowly to view the purple clusters of fading bruises. They had to be a little tender still, so when he ran his fingers over them, it was just a faint brush. He smiled a little at them, a little proud and a little distracted, not really as dismal as he could have been all things considered.

“She can’t- well, I don’t  _ think _ she can track us,” he hummed, “It’s just a friend. Someone willing to help.”

Marion glanced up, then, eyes widening as he caught sight of the pan, “Oh- shit,” he cussed, going to tend to it before the golden brown pancakes turned any darker. “I’ve been up for a bit. Calling in a few favors, pulling some strings. I might have a bit more of a plan- like, a half-assed plan instead of a 1/4th-assed plan you could say? Want some breakfast?”

“Friends can be dangerous... is it Alex?” He leaned against his chest, watching the expression on his face as he examined the marks. A bandage ran down from his shoulder to under his arm, covering the point where Marion had broken skin and left a mark that would scar.

He giggled as Marion rushed over to the pan, following him and grabbing some plates down for the two of them (although he did have to search for several seconds). “What kind of person goes outside with pancakes on the stove? How dumb do you have to be?”

“Hey, ow. I forgot for like two seconds, cause I was  _ busy _ ,” Marion gave a wounded pout in his direction, but it was quickly forgotten as he took one of the plates to pile with the pancakes, cranking the burner and sliding the pan to the back of the stove, leaving it to wash later as he went to add them to the ensemble of breakfast foods on the table. “But no, heaven forbid Alex finds this place… she’d snatch the I.P and be breaking down the door in a half hour flat,” He snorted, “It was a journalist friend. She’s got some connections and well-” 

He broke off, angling his head downwards towards the food and going to uncover a steaming pot of oatmeal, going to load some up into a bowl for himself, along with fruit, a freshly toasted and buttered croissant, and strawberry pancakes. He upended a bottle of chocolate syrup over the plate to drizzle a frankly obscene amount over his whole meal in haphazard zig-zags, the ridiculous sight offset by his serious expression. 

“I’ve known this person for a really long time. Like, since before I was a hero. She’s one of the only people I trust with both my identities, I knew she could help us. So I explained a lot of our situation and she might… know someone you could talk to, once you get back.”

He paused, giving Greyson a level look, “Remember what I mentioned earlier? About educational rehabilitation?”

He made himself a bowl, taking some of the leftover strawberries to put in his oatmeal, then joined him at the table, sitting and crossing his legs in his chair. He leaned on one hand as he ate, watching him like some love-struck chick-flick teenager.

“A journalist? I- are you sure she’s trustworthy...?” Loose lips could land Marion in prison, far away from Greyson. He’d have preferred to do this without telling anyone else, but he trusted Marion. He was a hero; a naive goody-two-shoes. He stuck by his word, that was for certain.

“Do you think she’d be able to help sort that out?” He couldn’t hide the excitement from his voice, but it was no use to get his hopes up. 

Marion, busied with making sure his croissant had the proper excess of sugary syrup, made an amused noise in the back of his throat, "Don't have to think, I know she can. And don't worry about it…she keeps my secrets better than I can sometimes. 'Sides, she owes me a favor or two," he gave a little smirk that was complacent, albeit in good humor. "We were really close, for a while. In the same dorm, actually. She's always been…well, zealous isn't the word for it, but she advocates a lot for better support for superhumans. You know, more inclusive training programs and all that to give villains and vigilantes another option. She thinks things aren't as good as they could be and honestly I'm starting to understand-" 

He broke off, spearing a chunk of honeydew with his fork and a sigh. "Well, the point is, she recommended a therapist she knows. A good one, who already has experience with superhuman convicts. Apparently they work out of my old college, and she offered to help us arrange something where you could go back and forth between the facility and campus during the week… take some therapy, and do some work to pay for it. Teach classes or record video curriculum for students or something, there's even a good lab there you might have access to once they get to know you better."

“I-“ his head dropped his hand in his hair. “That sounds amazing, Marion... I don’t know how I can thank you. Really.” His food sat untouched for the time being, even as his hair dipped into it. 

“These are opportunities I never thought I’d have. We’ll have to see if the NHU allows it, but...” he stood, circling around the table to kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”

He stole a bite of his pancakes as he went to sit down in his seat again, giggling.

“Hey! Thief,” Marion protested laughingly, a smile breaking out onto his face at the thank you and the sweet kiss. 

“Yeah, the legal part’s gonna be the most grueling. But I kinda know the ins and out of the system so I’ve got a game plan. We can go through it after eating, if you want,” He gestured to the couch with the laptop, “Settle down and take care of the nerd stuff.”

“Yeah, that’d probably be best. I want to know what’s going to happen. It’s no fun being in the dark...” he finally dug into his food, taking a huge bite of pancakes.

“I’m good with nerd stuff anyway; I took an online class for political science so I would know what was going on if I ever got caught.”

Marion cocked his head to look at the other man for a second, something like newfound admiration dancing in his eyes as he smiled, "How do you fit it all in your head? That's definitely gonna come in handy."

It wouldn't be a walk in the park- they'd have to file for partial parole and two types of rehabilitation- educational and wellbeing. But it wasn't the most daunting thing they were going to face by far, and Marion was sure he could get past that much at least before his hands were taken off the matter.

He finished his plate with a little more gusto, moving over to the laptop to pull out the hard drive and return it to his pocket and settling cross legged on the couch.

Grey took his plate and went to eat on the couch with him, crossing his legs and setting the plate in his lap. He glanced at the screen, his eyes scanning over it.

“So you said educational rehabilitation...? Does that mean taking classes or teaching them? Do I get to choose the subject? What about actually going to classes?” He said this all with a grin on his face, and excitement in his voice. Despite his best efforts, he was getting his hopes up, and he was going to crash and burn if this ended badly.

A little laughter escaping, Marion scooched over to give him some space, “Hold up a little, nerd. Like I said, I’m not sure exactly what all we’re gonna do. That’s what we’re figuring out.”

His browser had too many tabs open to possibly be seen at once; a mish mash of research and documents and forms and videos. He unpaused the music he’d been listening to, some backyard rock band playing quietly from the speakers as he began to sift through and explain what he was doing.

It took the lion’s share of the morning, the sun slowly crawling overhead from the east to light the living room in its golden glow diffused gently by the curtains.

He giggled, setting his chin on his shoulder, his food forgotten in his lap. “I’m excited. This’ll be the closest thing I’ve had to normal since I was six years old.” 

He leaned over the laptop, pointing and commenting and smiling. Eventually, he set his plate on the table and got on his knees behind him, his arms looped around his shoulders, his lips in the junction between his head and neck.

As the plan slowly fleshed out, Marion nodding along and offering his own input in an engrossed back and forth volley of ideas and conversation, he found that the weight on his shoulders- the non-literal, non-blond one, at least- eased a little, and his smile widened in turn to something humored and sparklingly hopeful.

After going back, he intended on focusing the brunt of his energy on calming down the uproar it would cause- the media hadn’t been informed of the breach quite yet, and he was glad, but not surprised- it would have foolish for the NHU to release the information quite yet. Nevertheless, there were still probably more than a few in his support network aware of the fact. He and Greyson would be submitting their case and paperwork by then, though, and Marion would be reaching out to the city officials and authorities he knew to get the changes made. 

He’d hesitated before mentioning that he was going to ask for a formal complaint against the facility to be made. 

“It’s long past overdue,” The man had stated, scrolling down to attach his sprawling signature to the bottom of a letter. “That cell was made as a holding pen for someone ten times as volatile. You should have been moved right after you agreed to give up your powers.”

Despite his newfound qualms in the NHU’s virtue, he couldn’t wait to get Greyson some professional help. After the fact, they would both be able to really focus on settling into the changes that this had wrought in both their lives, and re-find normalcy. 

God, Marion couldn’t wait. 

He hit enter on the last of the parole appeals, and pushed the laptop back onto the coffee table, flopping to his side with a groan, “I forgot how much I hate this part of the job. Too many words,” He huffed, throwing a hand over his eyes in melodramatic complaint.

Greyson had read and re-read the complaint made to the Facility, adjusting phrasing a little imprudently. He’d been the one stuck there, and Marion was far less harsh with his words than they had been with his treatment. 

He followed him, climbing on top and draping himself over Marion. “Well, why didn’t you ask me to help phrase? I’m good with words. Numbers, too, but... I don’t know. I can do technical terms and facts and shit.”

He pressed his lips to his cheek sloppily. “I’m excited. And, Y’know... I hope they don’t keep you away from me, not for too long. And I hope I’m not in the Facility for too long, either...” How long he had to withstand in the white room was all dependent on how urgent the NHU wanted him sealed away, and how pushy Marion was with them... something about willingly placing his fate in Marion’s hands made his skin crawl. Even if Greyson believed him trustworthy.

“Yeah, you are,” Marion agreed with a little hum, peeking out at the blond from where he was sprawled, “You can change it if you want- really, you’re the one who’s gonna end up making all these decisions, in the end anyway.”

He paused, then added, in a softer tone. “You’re better than me at a lot of this shit. You could do some incredible things with what you’ve got so far.”

“I’m not ‘stable’ enough to make decisions for myself. They don’t trust me. If they don’t strip your intermediate title, you’ll be making the decisions. If I ran away by myself, it’d be the same. I wish they trusted me...” 

He kissed his jaw. “I’d be a disaster in that cell without you, trust me. Or a disaster without powers in Rome.”

Marion let his lips dip, cupping Greyson's jaw in turn with one hand to tilt down and press a kiss to his forehead with a little sigh and a smile, "Which is exactly why it's good you're going with people who can give you what neither of us can. To be completely honest, I'm gonna start looking for a therapist too."

He turned his head, a faint smile taking the place of the apprehension building under his eyelids, "Everything is gonna change because of all this. I can't wait to see what we can make of it, despite everything, you know?"

“Let’s hope we can make something good.” He finally closed his eyes, taking a moment to breath in his scent.

He didn’t leave his side for most of the day. His lips peppered his face and cheeks with kisses, and received them in return. His chest filled with dread at the sight of the sunset. They were going back tonight. Greyson couldn’t sleep at his side that night, couldn’t wake up with him. He’d have to put the Facility clothes back on. 

Only after the sun was down did Greyson stand up and take the sweatshirt off. He’d leave it for Marion, having adequately made it smell like him. He instead opted for a pair of too-small sweatpants, and a t-shirt from the back of the closet. They’d be confiscated anyway, and he didn’t want Mari to lose his clothes.

Letting the time slip between his fingers was agony and bliss in tandem; Marion spent most of the day once they were through puttering around the apartment like it was a form of sanity he could cling to, making sure everything was ready for another long break in visitation, and that didn’t leave much. 

So he kissed back. The spring showers of little brushes and pecks of the cheek and the deeper, rumbling thunderstorms that left him panting and a little foggy in the head, though he didn’t try to initiate anything further than that. His touches were all the lingering, gentle things of a man cherishing something he knew he would lose because...well, he was excited for Greyson. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t miss him too much to think about while he was gone. 

After the sun settled behind the shroud of the horizon, and the lights were back on in the living room, he finally peeled himself away from where he was religiously scouring the news for any new updates. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he stood and let out a little breath, shifting down the sleeves of his own outfit which he’d laundered and changed back into. 

Turning to the blond, he let his voice slide down, unable to keep the throaty echo of something heavy out of it as he finally asked, “Alright… let’s go face the music, yeah?”

He nodded a bit, his arms around himself. The t-shirt he’d chosen to wore meant that the marks on his wrists were out in the open, and they’d be there for anyone with a camera to see. The marks on his back were peeking up under his collar, too, and he was uncomfortably aware of it. 

He took his hand. “I have a feeling we didn’t take a taxi here. Let’s get going before I run away with my tail between my legs.”

It broke a little laugh out of him; they most certainly hadn’t taken a taxi, and he was fairly sure taking one back would be a hell of a lot more trouble on top of everything than he was willing to put up with tonight. “Yeah,” he agreed quietly, rubbing his neck with a puff of breath, “Well, showing up at a secured government facility is a little easier without alerting some poor driver to who he’s carrying around. I hope you like flying.” 

The last part with a droll little smile, as he crossed over to the other man, plucking him up with practiced ease, bridal style and eyes trained on the fire escape as he climbed back out and went for the roof again. The wind chill was a little colder tonight, heralding one of the sporadic, bone drenching showers that frequented the streets in late spring.

He didn’t take off until he was away from the alley’s lit windows and the busy street on the other side of the building; wind rushing up around them in perhaps a more controlled manner than Corvid had seen as they shot into the sky. His priority when leaving the building was always speed- any errant cameras or straying eyes could be watching from such a metropolitan jungle, and he didn’t want them to see anything but a blur until he was far enough away from his refuge. The visor had come back up at some point, and he was, with growingly disparate finality in his chest, Euclidi again, hovering between two universes with New York flying by beneath his feet and the mostly overcast night sky stretching above. 

“Flying- what exactly can you do with those powers-“ he cut himself off with a little yelp, then a giggle when he was lifted into his arms. If he could pretend that this was a romantic night stargazing instead of a trip back to a sickening room, he could love him until the very end

Because he knew that he’d resent him as he was dragged back.

He knew that, despite his best efforts, he’d resent him once he had to go. He’d resent the blank look that he’d get, and he’d resent that he wouldn’t be able to picture the sorrow in his eyes, under his hologram of a mask. 

So he looped his arms around his shoulders and grinned and let his hair blow in the wind. He let the chill bite his skin, lifted his hand to his hair, and played with the curls. He tried not to think.

A laugh answered the question but he could barely raise his voice above the wind to answer, “I agitate the air molecules until they’re pressurized! It’s like balancing on a surfboard.”

He wished he had more time to explain, because of course he did. But it was as the crow flew, not difficult to get to the industrial zone where the NHU headquarters and the correctional facility sat, safely away from civilian residents in case of attack.

The close proximity- only a few large blocks, really- meant it wouldn’t be hard to move between the two of them, and as he stopped atop the concrete steps to take a deep breath and double check that the drive with all their work on it was safely in his pocket. This fight was going to be tricky to navigate, he knew, and so his shoulders squared in determination as he stepped forwards through the heavy sliding doors. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	38. Wait For Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get ready to cry! I’m not going to lie, guys, I make myself cry way too often thinking about these two. Like. At least twice a day.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He landed with him, slipping out of his arms and softly landing on his feet. He looked up at the headquarters from their place on its steps, and took a shaky breath. 

He grabbed his hand and jerked him back before he could go in, and pressed a final sharp kiss to his lips. His eyes were clenched shut, holding back tears. “Try to get me out soon, yeah...?” He murmured, then followed him in.

  
  


The secretary at the front desk took a second to look up, eyes glazed over with boredom from the night shift until they caught on the two and widened. She scrambled at her chair’s armrests, then stood up, “E-eucli-”

“Hello, miss Venson,” he replied politely, and in a neutral tone, “I would like to speak with the justice deputy on call right now. It’s...important.”

Grey was sure the secretary recognized him, even if he’d never met her in person. He was  _ the _ Corvid. His face was all over the news, and she’d probably seen his records. 

He entangled their hands, twining his arm around Marion’s. He was going to be pulled away any second now, and he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t speak. He was turning himself in, and it hurt.

She rushed to dial the number, fumbling with the phone for a minute. “I-right away sir-“ they could hear the conversation, they could hear the “Yes, you heard me, Euclidi is here, and he’s got Corvid- yes, contact the director-“

Marion watched with a little frown as the clerk made her call, hand squeezing Greyson’s in return. Glancing around, he noted with relief that the guards peering in from the lobby and surrounding hallways with various expressions of wary surprise were the navy-uniformed ones assigned to the NHU - not the black-clad soldiers that had been watching them at the facility. He wasn’t worried about vetoing any attempts at detaining Grey before they could do what’d they’d come for- he outranked most people here by job title alone.

He just hoped all the things they’d talked through before would help the man feel less lost as they finalized the legal proceedings. The last thing Greyson needed right now was a panic attack, and he looked like he just wanted to get it all over with anyway.

“You’re clear to go up, the deputy’s waiting for you,” Miss Venson pulled his attention back as she put the phone back on the hook and glanced between the two of them with a slightly frenetic expression, “Now if you’d help escort him to one of the containment blocks-”

“That won’t be necessary,” Marion interrupted, soothing and no nonsense in a way that said ‘hero’ as much as the glowing mask or shoulders pulled back in gentle confidence. “There’s no threat here. Okay?” He turned his head to Greyson, addressing him as much as the others in earshot, “We’re here to make things better, so we need to speak to the Dep. together.”

“But- his  _ powers _ , sir,” she whispered, aghast. 

“Are a non-issue.” He didn’t bother going into detail on that one, giving the blond’s shoulder a soft bump, “You’re not gonna try to attack anyone, yeah? We’re all good.”

His grip on his hand tightened. 

_ A containment block- they’re going to cuff me, they’re going to take him away, they’re- _ he cut off his own thoughts the second Marion reassured him, taking a deep breath. He knew he’d have to be dragged back, he just couldn’t handle Marion being the one to do it. 

He thought he’d be able to do this. He thought he’d be stoic, as he was during his trial (up until the sentence, but that was a different story). He thought he could handle it, could make rational decisions. 

Well, he was glad he had Marion for that. 

Greyson nodded numbly, resisting his temptation to bury his face in the crook of his neck and stay there. “I don’t... even have them anymore... so...” he mumbled quietly.

  
  


“So we don’t need to be doing anything extreme,” He picked it up in a level tone when it was clear Greyson was through speaking. “Thank you for your concern, Candace. But it will be okay,” Marion reassured, leaning forwards to give her a light smile.

The woman nodded in kind, more falling into place than anything else, if the skeptic nervousness behind her eyes said anything, and the hero took that up as good enough, stepping back past the counter to head to the turnstiles barring the back of the building off. He waved off the offer of an escort from one of the guards, pressing a button to the elevator and stepping through with a slight sag to his shoulders as the doors slid shut. “One obstacle down, one to go,” He murmured quietly, the hand holding Grey’s tightening a little in kind. “Sorry, this part might take a while. Hanging in there?”

The second the doors shut, he pressed a kiss to his lips. He didn’t seem to care about (or notice) the camera in the corner. “I’m okay.” He mumbled, his forehead against his chest. “I’m scared. I’m going to miss you. I’m going to miss you so much. I can’t let go of you, not so soon...” Oh, now he was crying. Now he couldn’t help it.

“You’re the best thing I have... Mari, don’t make me lose you so soon...”

A short breath escaped him, and though he hadn’t had much time to return the kiss, he still melted a little, wrapping his arms around the other in a tight hug. “It’ll be alright. We’re making you a place you won’t be left alone. You’ll meet new people and the time will fly by until we can see each other again,” He murmured quietly, pulling back ever so slightly as the elevator crawled to a halt and the doors slid open to wipe away the tears and take his hand again. “Just like you said, remember? We have time on our side. Let’s go make the best of it.” 

“I don’t want to meet new people... I want you, Marion...” he pulled away, though, and squeezed his hand. He’d done things worse than this, right? Felt worse pain than the one in his chest, that came from no physical injury. He’d felt far worse. Right...?

He wiped the rest of his tears away, stepping out with him. He didn’t want to, but Marion believed in him, believed he could get better. And so he had to try.

The space was filled with office cubicles lining either side that opened up to a larger working area with low tables with chairs perched neatly on top of them for the night. The lights that were on were staggered to dim them, except for the office on the far end of the room, which glowed yellow with light spilling from the glass window that looked out over the corporate space.

It was dark enough that he felt comfortable leaning over to return the kiss to his temple, voice low. “Then let’s wait for each other? That way it’ll be even sweeter when we can be together again.”

He hiccuped, and nodded, meeting his eyes. “I’m okay. Let’s do this. I’m... I’m okay.” He couldn’t resist pressing another kiss to his cheek. 

“I- of course I’ll wait for you- I couldn’t picture anyone else- I couldn’t imagine loving anyone else-“ he cut himself off. “I-just- we should go. We should do this. Now.”

Marion stared at him for a second, stared into the still slightly glassy eyes and let his lips press together silently, and then he nodded and held his hand more firmly, and started down between the row of cubicles to the far office. His mind was locked in a deathgrip on the fact that this was right, this was  _ healthy _ , and that even if the two of them would miss each other, there was still so 

much Grey had to learn about the world. Even if Marion couldn’t be allowed to be the one to teach him. 

That was alright; he didn’t mind the idea of staying exclusive to the other. Of waiting. They could pick up where they left off and come to know each other better, somewhere down the road where guilt and trauma couldn’t fog their love.

He gave a light knock on the cracked door, waiting until he got the muffled okay to come in.

The deputy was a gently aging man in his mid-thirties, with spiky red hair and a trim little moustache, and pictures of his partner and dogs on his desk. Though it took a minute or two to calm him from the initial shock of having a former supervillain walk into his office, he quickly proved to be a talkative, if somewhat flighty person. It seemed that the staff at the NHU were all given various levels of clearance concerning what had actually happened, for while he knew about Greyson’s powers being gone, he seemed to have little knowledge of what had actually happened two days ago, and he was quickly ushering the two of them into seats to demand an explanation. 

Greyson let Marion do the talking. He sat in his hard-backed chair, his hand squeezing Marion’s. He was afraid he’d break down and go on a rant if he opened his mouth, so he resisted the urge to climb into his lap, to even rest his head on his shoulder. He just squeezed his hand, with his back as stiff as a board as Marion explained what happened.

He sort of zoned out. He was lost in the thought of being back in the cell, without Marion, back in the white clothes and empty room. He knew it wouldn’t be for long, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be bad, and he dreaded it. This was just dragging everything out.

Finally, he turned to Marion. “W-what’s gonna happen...?” He mumbled. “When are they taking me back...?”

Marion's head followed the deputy's as he stepped back to a filing cabinet to pull out some papers. 

"It won't be long now."

It was low, and soft. His hand hadn't pulled away all this time, through the explanations and narratives, the quick volley of information back and forth over the desk and the few quick email checks and phone calls needed to piece things together.

The president wasn't available to authorize changes; he'd left soon after Marion disappeared (and it hadn't been a coincidence, based on the look the deputy gave them) on an urgent call to meet with some of his superiors, and he was out of contact for an indeterminate amount of time. He'd left his executive staff to run the union in his stead. So Euclidi could authorize the paperwork himself, the parole and rehabilitation orders, it wouldn't take more than a few business days to push through court.

The hero couldn't stop a quick, relieved slump to his shoulders upon hearing that, and he wasted no time giving the contact information for his friend and the college. The email was sent off; the papers signed.

Euclidi had an offense filed against him for property damage and harboring a criminal- it was under special jury and wouldn't affect his records. He would likely have to speak with judicial officers to file it away before he could go back to work. His intermediary status was pending nullification. The deputy and executive warden were in charge of Greyson's housing now.

"And you're aware an active threat level cell isn't necessary anymore," the hero had leaned forwards a little, emphasizing his point. 

"I'm aware. That floor is still roped off anyways. He'll go into a standard block like the rest of our detainees," the deputy explained, eyes flitting between the two of them.

The hero nodded after a second, sitting back.

The deputy phoned back down to the first floor, to ask for a transport van to be readied.

Marion stood up, watching the lights in the main office space light up more as a few security officers entered and made their way over. There was a faint tremble in his free hand which he hid by clenching it loosely. He watched as the deputy stepped out for a second to debrief the guards.

"We did it, Grey," he said softly, and with his back turned to the door, for a second, just a second or two, his visor flickered out to let Greyson see the clench in his eyebrows and the twin blue pools of loving, melancholy hope and concern.

Greyson nodded, his foot tapping. He felt the urge to dig his nails into his skin, to create more of the marks that laced his body. But Marion was there, and so he was okay. He was safe.

He couldn’t help the grin at the news. He wouldn’t be shoved in a cell. A standard block- that meant one with a communal room and a roommate and time outside. It meant access to a library and real beds. It meant that it would be tolerable.

He surged forward, their chests clashing as he pulled him into a hug, perhaps the last one before he was taken away. “It’s over.” He whispered, and he was certain. “It’s over now, isn’t it? We’re going to get better... the fighting is over...”

He laughed, reaching up to run a hand through his curly hair. “I’m going to get help. And I won’t have to be your priority. Then you can spend time with your friends, instead of making sure I don’t kill myself. You can get help too, Mari...”

Like he'd been waiting for it, Marion met the embrace in turn, arms pulling tight around him- snug and sure, nearly crushing but not quite, with a cheek pressed into blond hair. His chest swelled at the words, head angling downwards a little to pull in a gulp of air. 

"We're going to get better," he repeated, like the words were sacred. Quiet, reverential. 

"Don't rush yourself for me, okay? Learn new things. I will too. Take care of yourself; talk to new people. We'll have so much to share when we meet again."

“I’m going to miss you, my love... I’m going to miss you so much...” the transport van would be there any second, and he’d be pulled away. He 

couldn’t help but think that Marion could pull away now, and that if he decided he never wanted to see Greyson again, he could do that. 

Instead, his hand reached up to the bandage over his shoulder, where his teeth had left a mark as a reminder of his love. And he remembered that Marion had allowed him to place a matching one, in a rush of heat and love. 

“...Don’t replace me. I need your love when I get out.”

“There’s no replacement for you. Not to me.”

Shifting back to let Greyson move freely, he reached up, sliding a hand around the back of his neck to hold him close for a second longer before his hands slid to his shoulders. “I’ll miss you from now until the second we’re together again,” Marion whispered quietly, and then his head lifted away from the blond locks that smelled like him, because the deputy was back, standing silently at the door with a raised brow as he waited impassively.

He took a tiny step back, but his hands didn’t leave. “Go. Whenever you’re ready.”

He glanced at the officer, and his eyes widened. But he slowly detached himself from Marion’s arms (and regretted doing so the second they were disconnected.) 

He followed the deputy down the stairs (he wasn’t trusted in an elevator) and past the receptionist’s desk. She stood, when she saw them, her brow furrowed in concern. She didn’t say anything.

He held his hands out for the cuffs, then stepped up into the van once they were on. He couldn’t help but feel a pressure on his chest as they pulled away. Farther and farther away from Marion.

  
  


Hands falling to his sides, Marion stilled and watched until the stairwell door closed; he stayed standing, left alone in the little room, and then crossed numbly over to the outside window in the main office. Just in time to watch the tail lights of an armored van pull out of sight around the corner, in the direction of the facility. Marion didn’t realize he’d reached up until he felt a dull throb, and noticed he’d pressed a hand into the fabric of his shirt at the collar, right where a healing bite mark hid. He watched numbly, as another vehicle pulled up to the curb, and let a faint, weary sigh escape as he watched its lone driver get out and storm into the front entrance of the building. 

He turned and waited until Alex had reached the office, and burst out from the elevator with some ear scathing curse.

“Son of a moose-shitting fatherless half-dick  _ bastard _ ,” The woman snarled, “I’m gonna take an immersion blender to your throat if you scare me like that one more time, Marion,” And then she was pulling him into a fierce, tight hug. “Goddamn you, stop doing this to me. I hate you  _ so fucking much. _ ”

Marion’s lips twitched upwards; he broke into a relieved, wobbly kind of laugh, and hugged her back, ignoring the indignant hiss as he picked her up to spin her around, once. “Yeah, yeah. I’m okay, Al,” He muttered softly. “Everything’s gonna be okay now.” 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	39. Let’s Go To Timpani’s

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so it begins! I realized there’s an issue with formatting, but I don’t have a laptop to fix it on. I should get one soon, then I’ll have a lot of editing to do. For now, please bear with me, guys!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Grey hiccuped quietly, much to the dismay of the guards at his side. He was smacked over the head, causing him to cry out, then quickly bite his lip to silence himself. 

He shifted, keeping his eyes clenched shut. He didn’t want to see the facility, even though he knew he’d be put in a regular block. He didn’t want to see it. 

He could help but open his eyes though, as they pulled into the garage, and he was dragged out of the van. He tilted his head up, desperate to catch a glimpse of the stars in case he wasn’t allowed outside again.

They changed to fluorescent lights and paneled ceiling, too quickly for his liking. Before he was taken to his cell, though, he was taken to the showers. Given a new set of scratchy white clothes, and forced to change in the presence of an officer, so they were sure he wasn’t hiding anything on him.

And only then was he taken to a new cell.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

Alex made a suffocated noise and batted his arms away, "That's twice this year and we're not even halfway through this time, stop making me think we've lost ya," the spitfire huffed, straightening her jacket out.

"Third times the charm," Marion joked weakly. 

“Oh, now you've sealed your fate. You're a disgrace," Alex stepped back to punch his shoulder, and he let a tired smile slide back onto his face. "Okay."

"No, not okay, do you realize how unprofessional this whole thing is? What's the first rule of working in the justice system, you  _ never _ get personal with a convict. Never. Like, fucking hell man, everyone's got their sob story, we don’t have time for this."

"Okay," he huffed lightly, glancing out the nearest window with a placating smile.

Alex narrowed her eyes. "You're done. Done, hear me? You're not going  _ near _ him again, you're staying out of his case files, you're not gonna touch that whole fucking building with a ten foot pole. You're through. I'm not letting you near any more convicts, at… at least for the rest of the year!"

"Al," Marion said. 

"No, I'm pulling rank. I'm gonna go through every file on his record and so help me if I see a  _ single  _ thing I don't like-" 

"Al," he repeated, and the tone in his voice stopped her short. She turned a light glare to him, "What."

"I wanna go out," the man muttered softly, "And get drunk. Stone cold. Let's go to Timpani's."

She snapped her mouth shut, and threw up her hands. "What!? Un-fucking-beleivable, no, we're not going o-" 

  
  


Two hours later, Marion staggered to his front door with the drugged buzz of alcohol singing in his ears.

His apartment was the only one on the floor- really, the only one in the building, which was the only reason Alex hadn't helped him inside. Well- he had promised quite vehemently that he wanted to be alone, now. 

The keys were clumsy in his hands; they scraped uselessly against the lock until he leaned his body against the doorframe, and concentrated. 

Stumbling inside, he shut the door behind him, and hung his re-acquired bag up on the coat rack, and took his phone out and tossed it onto the table. He stripped his shirt and shoes off and put them away, some fever dream of premeditation making his movement slow and deliberate. 

He crawled into bed, and curled up tight, and waited in the dark until it was warm enough to sleep, and then he began to cry, softly, muffling noises into the covers. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

Greyson was shoved into the block, and although this was meant to be a rehab facility for the criminally insane, it looked just like a prison. He walked through the empty common area, all the inmates already asleep in their bunks, and if they weren’t, locked in their cells.

The door to his new cell was buzzed open, and his escort shoved him inside. If his roommate had been asleep before, he wasn’t now, sitting up and watching Greyson. He numbly walked past him, up the ladder.

He got the top bunk, seeing as the bottom was already taken. Oh, that would be wonderful for when he was thrashing in his sleep.  _ Hopefully, I’ll fall off and break my neck, _ he thought tiredly. He was given a thin blanket and a mat for the shelf-like structure he was meant to sleep on. He already missed Marion’s bed, Marion included. He missed the feeling of sleeping with him, at his side. 

He climbed up the ladder to lay his stuff down, and then climbed up himself. He sat with his legs crossed, his back against the wall, and his head tilted up. The room already felt cramped and claustrophobic, but he didn’t want to go out yet, so he closed his eyes and pictured Marion at his side, holding his hand. The fantasy was corrupted with the image of Euclidi instead, and that didn’t last long. 

Inevitably, his roommate stood up to lean against the opposite wall, so he could see Greyson. “Why the hell would they bring you in so late? What’d you do?” 

Greyson opened his eyes, not moving an inch as he looked down at him. “It’s a long story that I don’t want to tell. They had nowhere else to put me.”

The man looked up at him with furrowed brows, then sat back down on his bunk, unwilling to question further.

Greyson didn’t sleep that night. 

Early the next morning, long after his roommate fell asleep, the door buzzed open and an older man in a suit stepped in.

“Corvid.”

“Luther.”

“Come with us.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I wasn’t asking.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

He’d just about fallen asleep, red-rimmed eyes buried loosely in the cool pillowcase, when his phone rang. He picked it up, remembering only after a second to mumble a bleary, “what,” into the microphone. 

“Hey.” Alex sounded more subdued than earlier. 

“What.”

“I forgot to tell you something, and…I didn’t forget. I just figured you’d make me give ‘em back, but I kinda robbed you.”

_ “What,”  _ Marion muttered eloquently.

“The hard drives. The research?”

He sat up, head clearing a little with the burst of cautious panic, “I don’t know-”

“Don’t lie,” Alex said sharply, and then, softer, “Don’t worry. I’m not giving them back to the info department. It’s just that I needed to verify the research on ‘em myself, but I also found the- the one with-”

Marion stayed silent until it was clear she’d trailed off for good, and then he murmured, “I haven’t looked at the drive with videos on it yet. Greyson implied what was on there.”

“It’s…”

“A lot. I know. What are you gonna do?”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said again, and Marion gave a quiet groan. 

“Something stupid, then.”

“Look, I don’t give a  _ shit _ about him as long as he’s out of the way. I just- I needed- I-I…”

He let his free hand come to join the one holding the receiver to his ear, brows drawing together. “Al? What’s the matter??”

A staticy, wet breath punched through, and her voice quickened, “I’m only saying this cause I’m drunk, and a coward and you’re probably not gonna remember this tomorrow and, Mari, I just- you and the Corvid kid, you’re not the only ones who- I mean, there are plenty of ways to break someone. Too many ways for bad people to get what they want outta you, I just want you to be  _ careful because- _ you- stick your neck out too much already. Okay? You gotta be more careful.”

Marion blew out a breath to push a stray curl out of his eyes. “That could be interpreted in different ways, but...okay. If you’ll be careful too.” He said slowly. And stayed sitting for a while after the line went dead. And turned his phone off and tossed it aside, and fell back into the pillows to roll over with a groan. It didn’t occur to him until right before he got back to sleep that Alex wasn’t supposed to know the number to that phone.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	40. Dartboard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s probably important to say that I don’t condone anything Corvid says or does in this chapter, or any chapter, really. He’s insane. Keep that in mind.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

“Darling...” Corvid murmured, his lips right next to his ear. “Sweetheart, wake up. We’re almost at the best part. You’re going to miss it if you keep passing out. You haven’t lost enough blood to be blacking out as much as you are, so I need you to try and stay awake for me, alright?”

This was three days into Euclidi’s capture. This was three days of different tortures, and no one knew how long he could keep finding ways to harm him. Maybe weeks. Maybe months.

There had been no rescue attempts, or, if there had, they either hadn’t found him, or they’d been disposed of, and Corvid had just never told him. Or maybe he had, and he was just too out of it to catch anything he said.

Right now, he had Euclidi chained by his wrists, hanging from the ceiling, with darts rolling between Corvid’s gloved fingers. He’d carved a dartboard into his back (soon to be covered with other marks) and was having a grand old time throwing darts as close to his spine as he could get without piercing it and paralyzing him. 

He stepped back when Euclidi lifted his head. “I’m gonna go for a bullseye from the other wall. Think I can hit it?”

  
  


Voices and visions swam in his peripheral. 

The swirl of thoughts and echoing panic lagged behind several steps, just a few, confused cries his mind made into the darkness before the pain caught up.

Euclidi’s form jerked against the restraints, a full-body spasm that ran from his shoulders, gave the chains a dull clank, pulled his limp legs under him again to weakly scrabble for purchase on the smooth, concrete floor. 

A faint moan spilled past the hero’s lips; he pulled in a haggard breath, hands opening to clasp at nothing before his head raised, just slightly, and fell again. 

There were colors starbursting in his vision, and his eyes couldn’t quite see past a blue haze. It was as if icy fingers crawled the inside of his skull, caressing and jabbing and whispering demonic things to him when Corvid wasn’t around to do it for them. 

Whatever the villain was keeping him on, it was preventing him from concentrating, much less controlling his own body for more than a few seconds at a time. Not that time meant much right now.

Everything below the neck was a throbbing nerve, one raw mass of burning pain that hissed and recoiled without his say so at every touch or stray breeze.

The man let his mouth fall open to retort, and a faint noise, a scratchy, parched hiss tumbled out instead, he swallowed, throat dry. Turned his head away silently, giving one tiny shake. 

_ No. No. Don’t. _

  
  


“No? Well, I do love a challenge, darling.” He stood almost against the opposite wall, with just enough room to throw. He pinched the tip of the dart between two fingers, heating the point until it was red hot. 

He pulled his arm back, aimed, and threw. The dart, scalding hot, buried itself over his right hip, not unintentionally. He heated the next, and threw it at his back. This one landed under a shoulder blade. The next, at the base of his neck. 

He held the final dart in his hand, slipping it between two fingers. Heating it. He aimed the dart. “Now hold still, my love, this is the last one.” He threw the dart, and... 

Right next to the base of his spine. Nearly paralyzing him from the waist down. Corvid wasn’t done toying with him yet...

He stepped forward, plucking each dart out of his skin and tossing them aside.

Corvid pressed his gloved palms to his hips, leaning in to whisper in his ear. “You’re mine, darling. And I’ll write my name all over you, so you never forget it.”

  
  


The ground lurched sideways as the first dart landed, blackness surging back into the corners of his vision. He could hear it- could feel the sizzle of iron tips and the way it electrified his nervous system to a panicked buzz before it actually registered. 

He cried out harshly, hands jerking at the chains- tried with baseless fervor to regroup, and gather himself together like he had countless times (had he? He couldn’t remember) because wasn't there something about the chains, about the cold iron that bit into already bruised, flayed open skin? Couldn't he just-

But he couldn't hang onto the coherency of the thought for more than a split second at a time. He split between jerking away from each hit, as if he could wrench them out by movement alone, and stilling as he tried to catch his ragged breath and keep his footing on the floor. It gave out soon enough, though, with the signing pain that soared above the others, his legs crumpled, and he choked on oxygen. 

Vaguely, he knew that this was only to tear at the edges of his already shredded mind- Corvid was trying to worm himself deeper in to take away more of the sanity. 

_ This is only the edge of what I can do _ , Corvid was saying. And he'd been saying it for three days. 

Which was probably why he found the fire in his voice, jerking his head up defiantly to meet the other man’s eyes- not that they could really see each other’s through the masks-

“Burning me cauterizes the wounds. Maybe I have lost enough blood enough for you, after all,” He rasped.

“I know what it does, sweet thing. If you were bleeding out, you’d be unconscious, and you’re no fun to play with when you’re unconscious.” He pressed his chest to his back, nearly kissing his cheek. “Oh, if I could touch you, darling. If I could touch you...” his palms didn’t move from their place on his hips, and instead he pulled them forward to meet his own. “I’d claim you in every sense of the word.”

His grip on his hips was tight enough to bruise, but bruises were the least of his worries. In a split second, they were scalding hot, branding his handprints into his skin, as a claim. 

The scream was delicious, full of agony, the agony that this hero deserved. It was even better that it was by his hands. 

He pulled them away after a moment of sitting there, after the smell of burning flesh had filled the room. He turned the camera off, and unlocked the chains from around his wrists, catching him as he fell. 

“Back to your cell, my lovely thing. Get you all patched up, so we can have more fun.” He set him down on his bed, calling for his medic. He combed his hands through his hair, sitting just above his head.

Spasmodic tremors still ran through the hero; his hands grasped at nothing as he slumped lifelessly into the hold. Blood beaded up from the cuts still; the others, before the burns, beaded up with the movement and welled freshly to overflowing. 

Broken phrases left the man’s lips- half sentences and wild muttering that made little sense even strung together. He shook his head still, cringing away from the touch until he couldn’t move far enough- trapped in the deceptive repose of his own ‘bed’. 

“Won’t, won’t,” a soft whisper, a repetitive mantra that flickered like a candle flame in an open breeze, “Won’t let you. I won’t, won’t-”

The medic didn’t say anything when he arrived- eyes flickering loosely over the man’s body, as he tapped his medical briefcase loosely against his side. With a pseudo-bow of his head in the villain’s direction, he set the case down on the floor to begin rummaging through it, pulling out a bottle of isopropyl. It wasn’t the first time he’d been called in, and the doctor defaulted to medical grade efficiency over any semblance of interest in the hero’s actual well-being. He was there to keep the hero alive; nothing more, nothing less. 

He pulled his head into his lap, holding him still and combing through his hair. “Easy, Love. You’ll tear open the stitches if you keep squirming.”

He frowned when Marion didn’t even acknowledge his order. “I said. Still.” He took a syringe from the doctor, pinning his wrist down and targeting the vein. “That should paralyze you, at least until he’s done. Isn’t it incredible?” He carded through his hair, the black curls dripping with blood. 

“Maybe I’ll let you take a shower later. That sound good, sweetheart?” He cupped his cheek, tilting his head so he’d meet his eyes. It was a shame he couldn’t see the hero’s, but he’d let him keep his identity secret. That wasn’t why he was doing this.

  
  


Adam’s apple bobbing as his head was raised, Marion gave a dry sob, body stilling and going rigid. He was obviously fighting panic, trying to jerk his head away even as his body locked up and took what little control he’d maintained over it. 

Only the visor remained- flickering and glitching along like a testament to the pain but never falling. It was like a reaction, but it was obviously something the hero didn’t need to consciously keep up, as it remained in his fitful moments of sleep.

He stayed silent, breath catching at the faintest sensation of a needle piercing into the skin of his abdomen and surgical thread sliding through. Stared up at the other man, lips trembling faintly, and nodded once. He wanted to get clean. The tackiness of half-congealed blood was getting to be a sensation that needled at his brain, and though he’d tried to rub his cheeks against his shoulders when he was alone, he was fairly sure there were tear tracks through the grime.

He stayed long after the doctor had left, just humming, playing with the curls. “You’re going to have to behave, if you want a shower. Can you do that for me, sweetheart?” He looked down at him, sitting down on the edge of the bed. 

Finally, he stood and left, then came back with a laptop. He sat against the wall, his legs crossed, typing. He never stopped humming.

He’d glance up at him every few seconds. “The NHU is looking for you. They’re practically panicking. So is the rest of the city. Oh, this is glorious. They don’t know what to do without their poster boy.”

He had kept quiet, because he didn’t know how to answer, and in the time he’d been gone to get his laptop, Marion had managed to regain a little of his movement. He’d curled up slightly, just as far as he could force his limbs to go. The burning was incessant. The medic had left his hips alone for the most part, so the heat had continued searing its way deep under his bare skin.

It hurt to move and it hurt to breathe. He barely heard the words over the blood throbbing in his ears. His breath caught a little; if the public knew he was out of commission it was going to cause a slough of problems. He desperately hoped they were keeping everyone away from the warehouse. 

He stood up, standing over him and grabbing his jaw, tilting his head to meet his eyes. “I’ll come back later, love. If you can stand, you can shower.”

  
  


He grabbed his laptop, carrying it under his arm as he left, feeling like a god and showing it in his body language. 

He went back to his lab, and set the laptop down, and only then did Corvid go away. He opened it, his mind numb, and tried to focus on his work.

_ Don’t call me that, _ Marion wanted to say. What came out instead was a faint whine. The fingers digging into his jaw forced his gaze up again and for a split second before the drugged haze settled over his shoulders again he swore he could see the heat rolling off the superhuman in waves. It was something about the man that had always fascinated him, but now he just recalled the ways it had been used, and shuddered. 

But he nodded again, too dazed to speak, and watched as the doors shut behind him and sealed out the light.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	41. You Would Have Taken Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES! I know it’s been a while. But it’s probably not the best that I’m updating this while procrastinating.
> 
> To explain myself, I stopped updating when I realized writing had slowed down drastically, and I was editing faster than we were writing. Updates probably won’t get any faster, but there’s nothing I can do about that. For now...
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

When he did come back, it was hours later, with some more food (drugged, of course.)

He sat on the edge of the bed, slowly as not to wake him. He set the tray down on the little table next to him and gently nudged him awake. 

“Dearest... think you can go shower...?”

Flinching under the touch, the hero startled awake with a gasp and jerked back into the wall. His face, ever hidden, angled itself towards Greyson in a parody of attention as he struggled to regain the lucidity that forever slipped away into the confused, dulled state. His stomach twisted at the smell of food, in hunger and the constant, paralysing paranoia. 

It had taken him a grand total of one meal to realize his food was being laced with the narcotics and since then, he’d refused a single bite that wasn’t shoved down his throat. Being injected or force fed wasn’t nearly as humiliating as taking it silently would have been. 

It was a pitiful, counterintuitive rebellion, but he wasn’t going to play willingly into the villain’s hands. 

He wasn’t.

Didn’t mean he also wasn’t really wanting that shower.

Marion just let another groan slip past his lips, and he struggled to sit up, bracing a hand against the wall and trying to pull his legs up to swing them off the bed. “Y-yes- yes. I can. I can.”

He helped him to his feet, looping an arm under his, so he’d have to lean against him to stand. He pressed his other hand to his hip, where the new burn sat. “Are you sure, my sweet thing? I wouldn’t want you tripping and falling.” He smirked. 

He’d brought the food, knowing he probably wouldn’t eat it. He didn’t see why- he’d be drugged anyway. But if he was so persist to keep some semblance of resistance, then so be it. He just wouldn’t know when he was giving in, in larger ways. Like letting Corvid taking him to shower.

“Come on, baby.”

The only response was a hiss of pain as Marion jerked away from the pain in his side, stumbling into the villain’s chest before he could pull away. His legs shook dangerously, wooden and more like lifting dead weights than anything else. He still tried to stabilize himself, because the alternative was letting his captor half carry him. 

He kept his head down, because he’d already taken in every inch of the hallway outside his room, and the labyrinth of corridors that swirled in his head, getting mixed up with each other. He didn’t know what floor of the building they were on, or even if they were above ground. A window seemed a luxury he wasn’t going to be allowed for the duration of his stay. 

_ Should’ve booked a higher star motel. _

The delirious thought choked a faint chuckle out of Marion; he was more focused on trying to breathe around the agony, though, and pretend that this situation wasn’t already heart stoppingly bizarre. Terrifying.

He hesitated a little, balking a step as he heard footsteps down the hallway, just some worker or the medic perhaps. “I n...need my  _ clothes back, _ ” He whispered faintly, embarrassment tinging the statement. A low cut pair of boxers wasn’t really going to cut it if there were others so close to where Corvid was keeping him.

“Can’t do that, I already destroyed them. I found a tracker sewn in, and I couldn’t have your little government agency finding you so soon. Perhaps, if you behave, I’ll give you something of mine to wear, alright?” 

He lifted him anyway, carrying him so his legs were draped over one arm, and he’d have to loop his arms around Corvid’s shoulders if he didn’t want to fall. 

He carried him down the hall, past several guards, to an apartment, of sorts. He set him down at the door to the bathroom. “Can I trust you to behave, or do I have to wait in there with you?”

Marion had found himself caught off his questionable guard by the first line- a tracker in his clothing, especially one from the NHU, was news to him. The thought was quickly shoved aside however, as he gave a noise of surprise as his world lurched sideways for a second and clung on, trying to ignore the faces of the others they passed by. He could feel his cheeks heating. 

He swallowed, visibly struggling to understand the question for a few seconds. “I-I can do it by myself,” He said, and then, in a softer, more forced tone, “...please.”

“Mm, convince me. Convince me that I can leave you alone, because with this little refusal to eat. I don’t know that I can trust you.” He traced his finger over his back, not in any pattern (or maybe in one, who knew what he was doing.)

He leaned against the wall, watching him, dissecting him with his eyes, seeing as he didn’t have a knife on-hand (not one that he wanted to reveal, anyway.) “Convince me.”

From where the man had set him down, he'd been forced to grab onto the bathroom entrance to keep his knees from buckling under him. The cool of the metal door jamb pressed against his face jarred him ever so faintly out of his trance for a second, and his stomach flipped again.

Marion's mouth worked for a second at the order; his head jerking up to look at the villain in an addled, almost pleading way. 

He looked in at the bathroom, and if there were windows, they must've been boarded over because he couldn't find them, then turned back to Greyson, "I don't know how I would...the-ere's nowhere to es-escape--" 

He tripped over his own tongue for a few more seconds, then stopped, and took a deep breath, looking anywhere but his captor's face. 

"I haven't had any privacy in three days, I just want--I won't… I promise I won't misuse it. Please let me have this," he whispered. 

“Hm. Okay then. I’ll trust you. Come here, first.” He held his hands out so he wouldn’t fall, pulling him against his chest again. 

“You can shower, but you’re wearing handcuffs when you do it. If I hear a bath running, I’m coming in. I don’t trust you not to try to harm yourself. You may not lock the door. You have thirty minutes. I’ll get you some clothes.”

He fastened the cuffs to his wrists, then turned to get some clothes from his closet. Ones he didn’t particularly care about, seeing as they’d probably get bloodied anyway.

He held himself tensely in the villain’s arms, barely breathing until the other turned away. He couldn’t help tugging on the metal cuffs, senses too dumbed down to try and destroy them instead, and the ugly taste of despair rose again between his teeth. He waited patiently, head down, to be left alone.

He came back with a folded sweatshirt, sweatpants, underwear, and socks. He set the clothes on the counter and ruffled his hair, going to sit on the couch and read a book. He seemed almost normal, in his actions.

He set a timer for 30 minutes. He’d go to check on him when it was done.

  
  


Through the tumultuous clanging of fragmented thought and anxiety he couldn’t stave away (Marion swore these drugs were kicking his cortisol into overdrive; it worked in tandem with the numbness to set his senses afire), he managed to take his first steps on his own, staggering out a little of the numbness on his way to flip the shower faucets on. Marion’s mind blanked white for a bit once he’d plunged his head under the frigid deluge of water. He could feel his body tilting, and he threw his hands out blindly to find the wall and lean against it with a wet gasp before pushing under again, stepping in all the way this time. It pounded against his chest, his head, his back and shoulders. More of the paralysis was wearing out of his legs- pins and needles replacing clumsy deadness.

The first thing he realized once fully back on the plane of reality was that he was incredibly,  _ wretchedly  _ thirsty. He hadn’t known whether the water in his cell was drugged too, and had consumed as little of that as possible as well. Tilting his head back into the lukewarm spray, he drank long, and shuddered, resting his body against the wall again for a bit before starting to clean himself, but he still had to stop several times, panting quietly in exhaustion and trying to regain his bearings enough to even remember what it was he was doing. He hated the way his eyes skittered to the door every couple seconds- terrified his captor was going to come back sooner than he’d said. 

Marion took his time. It was hard, in the cuffs, and he wasn’t sure how long it had been before he was done- leaving the shower on as he got re-dressed, because he had no doubt in his mind that Corvid would hear the spray stop and come back early. The shirt stayed off- it would have been impossible to put on with the cuffs anyway. Some of the untended and unclotted cuts had come reopened with the washing though he’d done his best to be gentle, and he was bleeding sluggishly in several places. He used the shirt on those instead, wetting it to press gingerly over the worst of it on his back with a clumsy maneuver of his arms to get the cloth back there. 

Corvid sat on the couch, a laptop in his lap, scrolling through some microscope images. He didn’t glance up when he heard the shower running, but hummed softly. Euclidi could handle himself enough to shower for thirty minutes. And besides, there weren’t any windows in there- hell, the air vents were little slats in the wall, only a couple inches high. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, Corvid told himself.

He only minorly acknowledged when the shower turned off. He had ten minutes left on the timer, and he was sure that Marion would come out when he was done. It wasn’t like there was anything dangerous in there, and there wasn’t much he could make with what was there, ten minutes, and handcuffs. 

And he was drugged up.

Euclidi was so drugged out of his mind, Corvid wouldn’t be surprised if there was an extra bruise here and there from a fall or two. The warm water wouldn’t help, either- Corvid knew from experience. Who else was he meant to test it on?

He couldn’t wait to have some more fun with the little hero. 

Once his jerryrig tourniquet had done the best job it could, Marion carefully pulled it off.

His breath was coming in measured intervals- pulled in, held there for a second to straighten out a bit of frayed something, then let go with a short punch of release. 

Marion folded himself down against the bathroom door for a long few minutes, pressing himself against the floor, the door, the short wall of cold ceramic where the tub stood, beads of condensation rolling down its sides.

He pressed his head between his knees, wrapped his arms over his neck, and allowed himself, briefly, to be grounded. The world despite everything, real, solid, pressed against his drying body. 

A tiled floor and yellow light, the air thick and velvety with humidity. His heartbeat, thudding erratically under his (mostly) unburned chest. Water quivering at the tips of coal black curls. The pain, a sensation ubiquitous and blinding, familiar and binding.

It didn’t help the way his mind wandered, but after silence of mind and stillness of body, it settled something in the quintessence of him, that had held his own molecules together long before he’d been able to think.

Enough to stand; elbows knocking dully against the wood as he stood and opened the door, standing there for a second to stare at the villain with a mouth drawn to a limp line. He padded over to stand before him, and held out the cuffs.

Corvid gave a slow, self-satisfied smile as the hero walked out to him, his hair dripping and his hologram mask flickering over his cheeks (he could never figure out why the drugs didn’t affect the damn thing, but he’d given up when he realized it wouldn’t be as fun to torture some plainclothes civilian.)

His eyes dropped to the cuffs as the hero held them out for him. “I know I didn’t drug you too much to speak, my dear hero. If you’re going to stand there like a pouty child, then they’re not going to come off.” He turned back to his laptop, hiding the smirk that came from the view of Euclidi in the corner of his eye, wide eyed and huffing, a toddler in Greyson’s clothes. 

Some part in the back of his mind warned him not to underestimate him. This was still the way-too-powerful-for-his-own-good, star hero of New York, star hero of  _ the NHU itself. _

No, Corvid wasn’t relaxed because Marion was incapable of fighting him. He was relaxed because he  _ wouldn’t _ fight him. Marion had to know this too, and Corvid was very smug about it.

Marion’s chin jerked upwards fractionally; the knee-jerk tell of a man unused to degradation, and he stayed silent for a while longer.

“You,” The hero murmured, swallowing, “Can’t break my conviction. I can tell you that now. So ask me to beg, and I will. But you won’t know what I’m thinking.”

He chuckled at that- at the little jerk he made. Only three days, and Greyson hadn’t broken a single reflex from this goddamn boy’s fighting spirit. Oh well, he had time.

“Will you, now?” He leaned forward, his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand. “Go on, then. On your knees.” He tilted his head. “I can’t read your mind, no, but I can make a pretty good guess. You want nothing more than to tear me to pieces, don’t you?”

_ “Wanted,” _ Marion said stiffly, shifting on his legs. They were locked in place, stance spreading a little wider to prevent him from collapsing and when he did lower himself was with obvious effort in the deliberation. He knelt awkwardly with his gaze fixed on the wall somewhere over to the right rather than Corvid’s face, until he’d scuffled back a little. Forced his voice back out of a clenched jaw.

“If my choice is between these and satisfying your tastes… you’re going to restrain me again anyway. I want you to tell me,  _ I beg you to tell me,” _ his voice spasmed in his throat, as if his very biology fought the words coming out, “Why you make a mockery of love. Is it because you’ve had it and lost, or never known it at all?”

He chuckled. Shook his head and reached for his hands, lifting them so he could unlock the cuffs. As he did, he ran his thumb over the clenched fists chained there. His watchful gaze was on his hands, not his face. 

“It’s because it makes you feel so sick when I do it. Doesn’t it? You hate when I call you ‘darling’ because it reminds you of someone else who did it. It’s unsettling, when I use terms of affection when I show no signs of it. And even after I’ve told you this, it will still unsettle you, because you will know that I don’t mean the words, and at the same time, I mean them with every fiber of my being.”

He reached up to twirl a wet, black lock of hair. “Does that make sense, darling, or are you too drugged up to understand?”

Marion snatched back trembling hands, barely waiting for the cuff's removal before he levered one to the floor for balance. A quiet, choked noise escaped, at the man's words. 

"You would take me," he whispered, drugs blurring the tone, "If it wouldn't kill me."

“Mhm.” He slipped a finger under his chin to tilt his head up, dismayed that he couldn’t see his eyes. “I would’ve taken you where you stood. I’m sure that would make this little mask of yours slip, wouldn’t it?” 

Corvid chuckled to himself. “Oh, wouldn’t it be grand to lose my virginity to you. I think I’d pick someone else, though.”

He was standing, suddenly. His balance swayed 

and his vision almost blacked out from the rush of blood from his head, but he was backpedaling still, a sort of pained fury rumbling in his throat. 

"How many others," Marion snarled, "Have you done this to. How many people have you  _ broken  _ for the sake of a night's amusement? How many would you have forced?" 

“Just you, sweet cheeks. I think I only would have forced you, too. You’re special. But if I didn’t have the death touch, I wouldn’t be here in the first place. If I didn’t have the death touch, love, I would’ve been a hero.” He stood, holding him steady. 

“I think that’s enough time out of your cell for today.”

Struggling before he was fully aware of it, Marion stumbled away, shaking his head numbly, vision blurring. “No,” he was saying, a low noise that held for the first time the frayed edges of terror in a way that went beyond pain or sorrow. His hands hit the wall and he almost fell, sagging against it and looking again, in bleary confusion, for windows that weren’t there.

He slipped his hands under his arms, lifting him up, then looping an arm under his legs to carry him bridal-style. 

His hands were gentle, too gentle for a man that had just discussed raping the boy he held in his arms. “Easy, baby doll. If I drop you, it’ll hurt you more than it’ll hurt me.”

_ “Don’t,”  _ Marion gasped, jerking back and feeling dangerously, for a second, that he was going to be dropped. His bare back chafed where it pressed against Greyson’s clothing. He turned his head away and let the struggling die, limbs shaking tiredly, until the familiar sight of the little cell, the blood soaked bed and the splatters of congealed burgundy on the ground registered and he was fighting back again, weakly kicking out of the hold and falling to the ground with a slight crack of knees against concrete. 

He did his best to keep him up, but eventually just dropped him, letting him fall. “Alright, then, if you’d like to stain my clothes then that’s your choice. I won’t replace them when the blood’s soaked through.”

He disappeared, quite literally. The door opened and shut, seemingly on its own, and his footsteps receded. Leaving him in a puddle of his own blood.

Recovery took a few minutes- Marion’s mind floated in and out of darkness like the ebb and swell of some phosphene ocean, and it was already, and ever so gently washing out the memories- the harder he fought, the faster they slipped, turning muted like so many lines in the sand. 

Marion was back up on the bed, he didn’t know how he’d pulled himself there nor did he remember doing it. The pain was back, a dulled roar this time twisting as an undertow beneath the sickening phantom of smugly voiced threats that began to attach themselves to his mind in little tugs as he tumbled to a dogged sleep. 

And he dreamed of nonsensical and ghastly things.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	42. Obedient Little Pet Hero

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I admit it’s been a while! I apologize, time got away from me. I’m thinking about doing weekly updates, but it’s not guaranteed. I’m thinking Wednesday. For now, here ya go. Let’s see how many chapters I can publish right now.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

_ “Corvid.” _

_ “Luther.” _

_ “Come with us.” _

_ “And if I don’t?” _

_ “I wasn’t asking.” _

That short exchange had lead to Greyson blindfolded and silenced with a cloth in his mouth, tied around his head. He didn’t try to fight, even if he knew this wasn’t meant to be happening. 

Even though he knew Luther was acting behind Marion’s back.

Even though he knew that, wherever it was he was being dragged to, Marion wouldn’t know where to find him. 

He didn’t struggle, because of the sickening realization that most of his fighting techniques involved his powers. The powers he didn’t have anymore.

They wove through several hallways, and although he tried to keep the directions straight, he knew Luther was probably misleading him, and figured that if he ever came back here, it wouldn’t be the way he came out.

He fumbled up the step into the back of what could only be a van (who knew when the entered the garage,) and sat down towards the back. He heard others climb in after him, five, by his counting.

The blindfold was removed.

Four security guards and Bryant Luther. And the walls of a van, so he was right. He glared at no one in particular. He couldn’t show fear. Fear and rational thoughts didn’t mix, and he needed to be rational. 

_ Oh, Gods.  _

Black chrome and glinting steel showed at the guard's hand, at their hips. They were armed, helmeted, faces anonymous behind black glass and kevlar vests.

Luther was the only one who didn't look dressed for a fight, brushing off the sharp looking suit from some imagined speck of dust with a look of mild disgruntlement at having to sit in a van, most likely. The security personal sitting next to him edged away to give him more space.

The van started to life under their feet, grumbling quietly.

" 'I don't have powers anymore,' " The man said finally, looking straight up into Greyson's face, " 'But I've got fucking fists and I'll use them.' That's what you said, isn't it?"

He leaned forwards, resting loosely clasped hands on his knees. "Care to try that now, Corvid? Because I believe your other plan has already fallen through." 

Greyson was fuming. His eyes darted around the van, analyzing the van, the guards. Luther. He didn’t look armed, but that suit had far too many folds, places to hide a weapon. He couldn’t break the cuffs without seriously damaging or dislocating his wrists, and even if he did, the guards wouldn’t hesitate to shoot him, he was sure, despite whether or not they had no-kill orders. 

His eyes darted up when Luther spoke. Fear, then anger, then guilt, then anger flashed through his eyes.

In that order.

He shifted his head enough to spit the gag out and let it fall around his neck. 

“Bastard.” He spat. “Mari- Euclidi, told me that I’d be in a regular block until everything was sorted out- he said he filed for educational rehabilitation. This- this isn’t that. Not by a long shot.” He squirmed, kicking a guard in the shin hard enough to bruise.

“Where are you taking me? And does Mari know?”

Pulling his legs back a little is disgust, he watched Greyson for a few moments as the guard across from him gave a muffled curse. The one by his side gripped his arm harder as the butt of a gun was slammed unceremoniously into Grey’s stomach.

“No biting,” Luther snapped evenly, sitting back to brace himself as the van went over a few bumps, like it was turning out onto a road, and picked up speed. He ignored the questions, continuing nonchalantly, “You weren’t supposed to leave your room. You’ve been a hell of a lot more than I’m willing to put up with on a  _ good  _ day, villain. Do you blame a man for taking things into his own hands?”

He grunted as the wind was knocked out of him, his chest constricting. He fell forward as they hit the bumps, and was jerked back by the guard at his side, slamming his head against the wall.

“It wasn’t me!” He shouted. “I didn’t convince him to break me out! I wouldn’t have, ever!” He squirmed against the grip of the guard, kicking him squarely in the chest. “Let me talk to my intermediate.” He demanded. “Let me talk to Marion.”

The guard had been expecting the attack, this time. He rolled with it, deflecting the weight to the side with a faint grunt and gripping onto the leg to throw it back down to the floor. “Sir,” The man huffed, and Luther gave a tiny nod, at which point the guards shifted, cramming over to one on either side to grab Greyson’s wrists and start to shackle them to the bench seat. Two hands held his shoulders back; two more pressed down onto his knees.

“You will not,” Luther continued, “make a mockery of me the way you do my staff. My hero has matters requiring his devotion, far more important than those of a powerless mutant, and it is clear to me that you have twisted his priorities to your will far too strongly to be allowed any proximity to him again. You have no intermediate.”

He yelped, squirming under the hands that weren’t afraid to hold him down anymore. His wrists jerked up against the restraints, and his frenzied eyes landed on Luther.

“You can’t do that. That’s- that’s not in your range of power. That isn’t legal, you can’t do that!” He cried. “You can’t take me away from him, not without his direct consent.” His head was pushed back against the wall. He was beginning to panic. He felt helpless; helpless and out of control, and so angry and scared that it just might trigger Corvid, which was the last thing that would help him right now.”

When the guards pulled back it was because they'd finished strapping his hands and knees to the bench, with the ruthless efficiency reminiscent of the facility workers. When they pulled back it was to listen with impassivity the incredulous amusement tinting Luther's regard. 

"You wish to fall back onto the basis of legality? Then consider that Euclidi's protection over you was conditional from the start upon your obedience. Consider that in sending him to your cell the first time, I had extended to you an olive branch, and when you not only refused to cooperate but used that kindness to bend a hero of otherwise honorable character to your whim, you spat on it. I have done far more than is necessary, legally, to gain your acquiescence. And you will find, Calva," 

Luther leaned up, his eyes glinting in the orange leds in the van's ceiling. "That the law, when stretched thin, can resemble something far more difficult to override than one hero's signature. So why don't you do yourself a favor and get it over with. Ask me what I want."

He writhed and squirmed, but the restraints were tight enough to dig into his skin. They wouldn’t give, much less break.

Fuck. He should’ve read over all the legal documents with Marion, instead of letting him handle it all. He should’ve known this. 

He panted for a moment. Closed his eyes and took a couple of deep breaths. He thought of Marion, to calm himself down. Thought of what would happen to him if he lost control, if he gave more of a reason to be restrained.

Greyson opened his eyes and met Luther’s with a glare that could rival Medusa’s. “I don’t have to. I know what you want, and I’m not giving it to you just so you can make a thousand copies of Marion and dispose of him the way I know you would if he weren’t so useful. You’re just itching to have a more obedient little pet hero, aren’t you?”

Luther’s mouth worked for a second, and for a moment it looked like he might have been surprised. Might have; for he leaned forward, tone going velvety.

“You’re giving it to me so that my  _ one copy _ of an ‘obedient little pet hero’ doesn’t find himself at the forefront of a very, very long war against malformed criminals such as yourself. You’re going to give me what I want so that I won’t any longer have to tear the DNA from these animals themselves,  _ a single cell at a time.  _ My endgame, however, is not yours to presume.”

“Neither is mine.” He answered. “You’ve proven to me enough that you have no idea what I want.” He leaned back as much as he could with the restraints. “Corvid won’t give you a code, either. He’s more pain tolerant too.”

“I can’t stop Marion from doing what he does. If you break him, you’re not getting another one. He’s all you’ve got against me, and I doubt you’d be willing to hurt him.”

“...All I’ve got against you...”

Luther paused, considering this a moment, and then raised a brow. “And tell me, would  _ Corvid _ pass up on a chance to regain his puppet?”

His throat constricted. Corvid would want revenge, and he’d want it badly. 

And Greyson hesitated. Which was the biggest mistake he’d made so far. 

“You’re- you’re not going to give him to Corvid. He’d kill him. He wouldn’t hold back- you- you can’t. You’d lose him.”

“A knight for a queen,” And the man leaned back to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket, and unwrap it, pulling out a syringe. He passed it off to one of the soldiers; the only one with gloves small enough to handle the delicate tube without breaking it, as Greyson’s shoulders were once again taken, and held in place against the rumbling sides of the vehicle.

“Sounds like a fair trade to me.” 

“After all he’s done for you, you’re still willing to let him die? You’re just willing to- to give him up, just like that? You’re worse than Corvid.” He eyed the syringe. 

“You do realize that even if he gets his hands on Marion, he won’t give you the code. I think his desire for revenge is outweighed by his desire to keep the project secret.”

Okay, so the guard could try to knock him out. That didn’t mean he had to stay still, or be cooperative one bit.

“And isn’t that half the fun?” He didn’t look overly ecstatic, but then, there was a marked lack of sarcasm to it as well. “Finding out how much leash to give a wild thing, and finding when to tug back.”

There was a clear tension; the guards were expecting him to fight, even as the one leaned forwards to jab the needle into his arm. 

“I’m going to offer you a deal, later,” Luther stated, “Until then, put some thought into which is more worth saving- a single pure soul, or hundreds of those who breed in discord and soak themselves in innocent blood.”

He squirmed against the restraints and the hands of the other guard. His sleeve was pulled up, and the needle jabbed in a place between his scars. It’d be a couple seconds before it took effect. 

“Fuck you.” He spat. He really, truly couldn’t find a way out of this. “None of them deserve to die. Except you. You can rot in hell!” 

He could feel the liquid taking effect. He dropped his head and closed his eyes, picturing Marion. He’d save him. He had to.

Luther let out a sigh through his nose, “Like the railway conundrum, You might not find that a viable choice. I’d consider your options a little more carefully next time you have an opportunity.”

That, because the guard pulled away with an empty syringe, and sat back after tossing it carelessly to the side.

It was a one hour drive, through the typical twists and turns of urban areas and a long stretch once or twice along an interstate. The van doors didn’t open until they were safely underground and Greyson was transported inside and left secured to a treatment table in what could only be described as a laboratory, for a medical room didn’t quite cover the range of equipment in various states of use lining the walls. 

He didn’t have an opportunity to respond before he passed out. His wrists and back would be sore from the position he was slumped over in, but that was hardly a problem.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	43. Helpless (And Not In An Eliza Way)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know. I’m hamiltrash. But aren’t we all? 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

His wrists were red when they were uncuffed, his head lolling to the side when he was lifted.

Greyson didn’t wake up until almost half an hour had passed since he’d been set down. He jerked his wrists up once, then decided against it. It would only damage them more, and he needed to be in the best shape he could.

The undertone of clinical machinery buzzed lowly, almost too lowly to be picked up. The room was brightly lit and fairly sub-par as far as evil governmental facilities went; a few computers on maneuverable arms hung over counters half busy with documents in neat stacks and sample phials lined up in racks behind the glass doors of table-top incubators. 

Greyson wasn’t alone, but it might seem so at first glance. An adjacent room to the lab, which led far, far deeper, was alight and every once in a while a faint clink or footsetp might indicate life. A curtain was drawn over another side of the room, and the faintest beep of a heart rate monitor and ragged breath sounded behind it.

Down the corridor behind the table, voices came. Luther’s, and a flat, military tone. 

“-o indicate any degree of resistance, don’t hesitate to use appropriate measures to protect the doctors. He’s been declawed, but that doesn’t make him harmless.”

“Sir.”

“Oh, and tell Fennel to get the super off his meds. We’ll handle the introductions shortly.”

“Yessir,” the security repeated, stepping into the room with an abbreviated salute. Luther didn’t stop in on Grey, just continuing down the hallway, but the noise had drawn the doctor from the back room. After exchanging a few words with the guard in what might have been Spanish, she raised a brow as she came over to his side. “Mr. Calva. Any nausea, dizziness or blurred vision?”

He glanced around, analyzing the room for weapons. A scalpel had to be here somewhere, or, if it came to it, brute force could perhaps overpower someone. Not armed, though, and if he could presume anything from the voices, they were armed. Protective measures for doctors had to involve a weapon. 

And besides. Even if there were weapons in the room. Nothing within reach. He flexed his wrists, see if he could grab anything.

His eyes followed the voices across the room, then the woman when she entered. He couldn’t see any visible weapons anywhere, but gods knew they could be hidden all over the place.

“How about a mild case of fuck you? I’m not giving you the codes. Let me talk to Marion. Let me talk to him, let me talk to my hero!”

“I’m going to go out on a limb for you and mark those as ‘no’s,” She replied, with a note of idle sarcasm. “Don’t try to sit up, I’d like to keep your head free if at all possible. Do you have any medical allergies that you’re aware of? Adverse reactions to sevoflurane, etorphine… any other opioids or anesthesias?”

He didn’t want any extra restraints, so he kept his head down. “You found my birth certificate and not my medical records?” He turned his head away from her. “Haven’t gotten a checkup since I was six so I wouldn’t know. Fuck your questions. Fuck you.”

“We have your records. Whatever they kept you shot up with before isn’t on them. We’ll just be finding out along the way, I suppose.” the doctor pulled one of the computers over to type, then reached for, unsurprisingly, another syringe, this one empty. “Okay, Mr. Calva. Fresh blood samples, and then we can talk about why you’re here. Just breathe easy for me.”

His eyes followed her, a glare plastered on his face. “You’re not going to find a vein on either of my arms, the scars are too thick.” He tilted his head back. He’d have to cooperate until he could find a way out, and gaining trust was the best way to do that.

The doctor studied him for a moment while she finished settling the surgical gloves around her own wrists, then proceeded to take the silent offer and reach for his neck instead, “That’ll have to do for now. I suppose. There we go--”

And with a hum, she pulled away and went to contain and store the blood, and returned to apply a little cotton swab and band-aid. “There, all the formalities out of the way.”

The neutral-pleasant demeanour carried over as she settled back down, clasped her hands in her lap, and smiled at him, “If you have any questions, Mr. Calva, we’ll start with those. I can’t promise you answers, but it will be a start. Did Luther happen to tell you where you are?”

He watched her, doing his best to keep from swallowing as the needle pierced his throat. He wasn’t scared of needles; he’d need a few blood samples for his work.

“No, he didn’t. And I don’t know that I can trust whatever you tell me.” He tested the restraints again. “Why can’t I talk to Marion? Does he know where I am?”

If Mari didn’t know where he was, then he was on his own. Then there was no one to come save him. Fuck.

“Generally speaking, a hero’s responsibilities don’t carry out into the… aftermath of a criminal’s case. Their job is focused on the brunt work in the field; the N.H.U doesn’t like bothering their boys with any icky behind-the-scenes if they can help it. It’s not likely your hero was notified of these changes.”

She pulled out a pen to scribble something into the already note-filled skin of her forearm, “Oh, and rest assured- this is a professional clinic, Corvid. I like keeping things on the flexible side, but we have standards we set around here. I’m here to get you all settled in and ready for your correctional work. No lying necessary. Okay? So, clue me in a little here, this ‘Marion’ hero of yours. He’s the one who brought you into custody, isn’t he? Why would you think he’d be notified about any of this?”

He pushed his head up a bit to see what she was writing. These restraints were already getting on his nerves as it is. 

“I- he was... but he was my intermediate, he went through all the legal proceedings to be such. Luther said that that title was based on my behavior, but that can’t be right. Marion is supposed to have a say in what happens to me.”

He twisted his wrist, ignoring the butterflies slamming against his stomach walls. “...What do you mean ‘Correctional work’?”

The notes were mostly an illegible tangle of cursive, only a few words- ‘revenue, prescription, administration’, and a little doodle of a nitrogen molecule with a smiley face inked into the hexagonal structure. They disappeared unter the lab coat sleeve as she leaned forward- brows furrowing, “Hold on a sec, so what I’m hearing is that Euclidi asked  _ personally  _ for intermediacy over your incarceration. And Bryant  _ allowed _ it.

“Hm. Well, maybe all this is, is the N.H.U realizing they needed to have sent you to us from the start. The correctional work is the whole reason you’re here, Mr. Calva. It- oh, my gosh. I haven’t introduced myself! This is terribly embarrassing- my name is Ms. Rita, you can call me that or ma’am, or just Doctor will do if none of the other scientists are around.”

  
She gave a vague gesture about her, “This is the C.D.R.S, Cedars is what we say around here. Central Database for the Research of the Superhuman species. We work hand in hand with the N.H.U to figure out the science behind the mutants- or former mutants, such as yourself. Think of us as the N.H.U’s little shadow sister.” 

She smiled, standing up and, with ruthless efficiency, tugging Greyson’s head back down to the table to strap it in place with one of the ties built into the table. “When their department incarcerates a villain or vigilante, or even an undocumented Super who shows promise in one way or another, one of the inmate’s options is to come here and work off their prison time and any fines with volunteer work. Hence why you’re here- and just based on what I’ve seen of your research samples, I have the feeling we’ll fit you right in like a pea in a pod! Does that answer your question?”

He attempted to lift his head a bit higher to read the cursive upside down, which wasn’t an easy feat at all, but he gave up when her sleeve slipped down. “He didn’t ask them, I don’t think. He’s their poster boy, he can-“ he cut himself off when he realized something. “I never told you he was Euclidi...”

Her explanation chilled him to the very bone, because there was something just off about it, something she was just a bit too bad at hiding, and Greyson was just a bit too observant. 

He had a feeling she wasn’t telling the whole truth. He had a feeling that this would be closer to a concentration camp than a rehabilitation center. 

His head slammed against the table, forcing a shout from his lips and a throbbing pain through his entire head. The strap was too tight, too thick. He had the urge to protest, to insist he wasn’t even struggling, just curious. He silenced them all.

“What are my other options?”

“I’m afraid you in particular have exhausted any other options, Mr. Calva. Your therapy work in the N.H.U facility didn’t go as optimally as they had hoped, I’m told. And that’s right; you didn’t. Nobody told me that Euclidi’s real name was  _ Marion _ until you came along _. _ But you are Corvid. Your capture was a bit of a sensation for a while, you know.” Rita pulled back as she finished securing the strap, disappearing behind his head for a second to rummage around, “I can make a few inferences of my own, now can’t I? Isn’t that a scientist's job? To find patterns, to make theories and fit things together? Like I said; you and I will make very good friends, I know it. You can even think of this as your new lab, in time!”

When she returned, there was a pair of scissors in her hands, and she began, brusquely, to slide it under the cloth of Greyson’s sleeve. “Once we can get you settled down in your new outfit, and on a prescription, that is. Don’t want any nasty episodes, do we?”

His whole body flinched the second the scissors slipped under his sleeve. He jerked hard enough that it hurt, but his adrenaline silenced his screaming nerves. He jerked at his arm, attempting to pull it away, but the restraints prevented that. And he wasn’t able to get his shoulder bent enough. 

“Please don’t...” he mumbled. “Please let me change myself. Or keep the scissors away from my wrists...” The feeling of helplessness was creeping up on him again, and the rational part in the back of his mind wondered why they hadn’t done this while he was unconscious.

His rational part also wondered what the hell the drugs they’d put him on would do. And wanted to curse her out for even suggesting that he would accept being stuck here for the rest of his life. 

He needed Mari back.

She'd turned the blades away, out of the risk zone; a small corner of her mouth pulled downwards in dissatisfaction. 

And then she smiled amicably, pulling back, "Oh, so you'd like to get the hospital scrubs on by yourself? We can do that, if you're willing to sit around in these until I can verify your paperwork for nonlethal behavior. Does that sound good?" 

He nodded as much he could in the restraints. “F-fine. Keep your hands off me.” He squirmed a bit. “Could you let me out of the restraints? I don’t- I can’t do this. This is scaring me.”

He didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t know what else to say. He said what he meant, for lack of anything else to do. There wasn’t anything he could do. He was helpless. So, so helpless.

“You’d better not. He can get violent fairly easily,” came another voice- Luther’s- from the hallway. The man stepped in, flanked by another soldier that he gestured to stand in the doorway besides the first. He hardly glanced at Grey. “I came by to check the super’s status?”

Rita let an affected smile slip into her tone, “Streamlined as always, Bryant. I just need to check the monitors and then we can introduce them.”

Oxfords clicking across the pale tile, she walked further off to the cordoned off area behind the curtains, and Luther picked up her pen, fiddling idly with it as he stared their prisoner down.

“You can thank whatever code you follow I’m not going to be coming back here for a while. I’ve come to offer you my terms,” He stated simply.

He scoffed at that. No, he only got violent when he was confronted by a dick such as Bryant. His eyes rolled up to see him. He only caught a glimpse, but he could see the second guard (and the first, whom he hadn’t realized was there.)

This was worse than the van, when he was confronted by Luther. In the van, sitting up, he had some sense of dignity. This was humiliating, pinned down to a table. Immobile. 

Grey flipped him the double bird. 

“So you acknowledge everyone hates your guts, and you don’t care whatsoever? I don’t think that makes any fucking sense. You’re supposed to be the good guys, right? So why are you Loki instead of Nick Fury?”

He rambled on and on. He couldn’t use his fists, but he’d give him the verbal knuckle sandwich of a lifetime. 

“Alrighty, let me hear ‘em. I doubt I’ll care either way, but go on. Go on your little villain monologue. At least I had the sense to not tell my enemies my plans.”

Although Luther had the sense to keep his mouth shut, his short sigh was punctuated by a glance towards the ceiling, as though he were looking for a bubble of patience that might be stored there. 

“Since you seem so keen on dragging me through the mud, I’ll keep it simple.”

He stepped forwards with a smile smooth and grated like the underbelly of a shark, and unlatched the head restraint so he could better look Grey in the eyes. “You’re going to give us the research. Whether or not you do it our way or  _ her way _ is up to you. My deal is simply this- that if you last long enough here to go a month without progress, I will return and offer you another chance to cooperate back at the facility. If you make no progress there, it’s right back to Dr. Fennel. Permanently, in that case. 

You have yet to try life here; we will see which style of atonement you prefer. That is all.”

He got up on his elbows in an attempt to maintain a shred of dignity. This way, his eyes were about at Luther’s chest. His wrists were still throbbing, and this wasn’t helping any.

He didn’t know which was worse. He’d only been with this woman for 15 minutes at the maximum, and she was about as pleasant as a migraine on a 13-hour red-eye flight. But the facility... two months there nearly shattered him beyond recognition. If he hadn’t had Marion, he’d be nothing.

“I have a feeling her way is rather painful, isn’t it.So what powers does this other super have? Shadow manipulation? Shapeshifting? Good ol’ ice? That’d be ironic, wouldn’t it? Ice powers...”

“Why don’t you ask him yourself? This one doesn’t like being talked about like he’s not around,” Came the dulceted voice, and Rita pulled the curtains aside, wheeling another hospital bed out to a sharp stop and angling a smile at the both of them.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	44. Taser To The Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note, just in case it’s unclear: Benni is a transgender female. Both Dr. Fennel and Bryant Luther are misgendering her. I do not condone this behavior.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

The girl tied to the bed couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Thin wrists locked loosely to the sidebars of the stretcher with a thin length of chain, and legs similarly secured. An IV catheter disappeared into the gauze around her arm. Hair chopped short and frazzled, a chest that heaved frantically- and silently- as her eyes darted about in glassy, post-catatonic confusion. 

Luther raised his brows, stepping forwards quickly to grab onto the side of the bed. “He looks-”

“He’s been on a bit of a backslide. His medications were too strong so I’m dialing them back- the withdrawal is unfortunate but necessary,” Rita explained, clicking her tongue sympathetically. “Benni, buddy, why don’t you introduce yourself? The sooner you do, the sooner we can get you two out of these bindings.”

The girl on the bed, for lack of a better term, had recoiled as much as possible with the two adults towering over her. Breath catching in her throat, the first sound she’d made since waking, she turned to look at Greyson with wide eyes.

“Don’t believe anything she says,” she said hoarsely. “They’re all lying to us.”

He pushed himself up as much as he could to get a better look at her. “Don’t I know it... Dear Gods...” he leaned back onto his elbows. She looked miserable. She looked like she needed help. “What was it you were saying about getting us out of the bonds? My name’s Grey, pleasure to meet you, could you let me up now?” He tugged at the cuffs.

There was no one else in the room, maybe in the building, other than him, that could do anything to help this poor girl. This child. 

He looked over at Luther. “Yeah, I’ll think about it. You’re lucky I can’t punch you, cause I swear to gods I want to give you a bloody nose right now.” 

“For one who wants so much to be let free, you aren’t helping your own case,” Luther pointed out mildly. Dr. Fennel’s smile broadened for a moment, but she chided, “Now, Mr. Calva. Remember what we discussed about violent behavior. I won’t have any little spats in my lab. Benni. Introduce yourself.”

The super flinched faintly, turning her head away from them. “My-my name is Benni. I’m not sick, don’t believe her. It’s n-n… interesting to meet you,” She landed on, hands gripping onto the chains at her wrists to pull herself upright a little.

When it was clear she was through speaking, Rita clapped her hands, once, “Well, there we go! The two of you are going to be lab partners, so I hope you try to get along. Bryant? I think I can handle it from here.”

And after a drawn out look at the man on the table, Luther nodded, once. “My soldier has the keys. We can let him up. I don’t imagine he’ll try anything,” He hummed, gesturing to one of the men in the hallway.

“Perhaps if you weren’t such an absolute shitwad, you wouldn’t be so punch-able.” He spat, turn his head away. He met the girl’s eyes as she introduced herself (or tried to, she didn’t exactly look at him.)

“Lab partners? Never had one before. Are you any good in genetic engineering?” He glanced at the guard who supposedly had the keys to the cuffs. He was humiliated enough, he wouldn’t beg to be released anymore.

He finally took in his surroundings. Most of the equipment wasn’t particularly for genetic engineering. Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to give them shit.

He scowled. Bryant was right. There were two guards, Bryant (who he couldn’t imagine was defenseless) and Dr. Fennel, who couldn’t possibly be defenseless either. He wasn’t going to try anything.

Returning him with a confused look, Benni stayed silent, watching with nearly palpable fear as the guard crossed over, wearing the face shield to obscure their identity and pulling the keys out to begin unlocking the restraints, starting with his feet. 

Luther, for his part, managed to ignore the jabs and the wide smile Rita was shooting his way, and he gave a slight sigh and rested a few fingers on his temples for a moment before turning for the hallway. “I’ll finish signing off on the transfer.” 

He paused, then glanced back to the two inmates, eyes resting on Grey for a long moment. “Good luck,” He huffed, sarcastically or otherwise it was impossible to tell- before leaving.

Dr. Fennel shut the door behind him with an air of finality, the same aberrant humming noises under her breath indicating a cheerful demeanour that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Finally! Now we’re all friends, we can get started right away. I think I remember something being mentioned about changing clothes earlier, Corvid, don’t you?”

“Mhm. Wish I could say I wished the same for you.” He sat back on his elbows.

Greyson followed her gaze. He wasn’t quite scared of the guard, but if she was, then she must’ve known something about them that he didn’t.

He wondered how long she’d been here.

Greyson’s knees bent the second the were out of the restraints. He needed to stretch. He needed blood back in his limbs. He needed to get out of here, and he needed to take this super with him. He only had the means to complete two of those.

“Right.” Maybe those would be better than the white facility clothes. He watched as the guard unlatched one wrist, then the other. Greyson finally shifted so he was sat on the edge of the table, wrists throbbing and tugged against his chest.

The woman was already over at a counter, unlocking a drawer with a small key from her coat pocket. She tossed over the pale blue hospital scrubs without preamble, and going to grip the head of Benni’s stretcher again. 

“Go ahead. We’ll give you one minute” She smiled, starting to wheel it away. It wasn’t much space, to be sure; the guard was still there, only just stepping back to stand along the wall. 

As it turned out, it was in fact exactly a minute- a minute until the indiscernible murmuring from the cordoned off area escalated to a frightened wail.

Benni, previously quiet, had begun to scream, and when the curtains were pulled back by a disgruntled Rita, she was writhing against her restraints too. “I won’t, I won’t, I don’t wanna do it!” the girl keened, “I don’t wanna-”

“Don’t be difficult. After I tried to make this pleasant for our new patient,” Rita snapped, a mild annoyance in her eyes as she crossed quickly over to the drawers again to pull out a pre-loaded syringe. Without looking, she held a finger up to point at Greyson. “I’ll need you to lay back down- I know you're frightened already, dear. No sense making it worse for yourself.”

The scrubs (which he hadn’t caught) had short sleeves. The fabric wasn’t coarse, per se, but it was definitely cold. There was no way it was thick enough to retain any body heat. He changed his pants, but decided to put the new shirt over the old one. 

He practically fell over when he heard her screams. He leaned back against the table, gripping it with both hands, and watching as the curtain was pulled back with a furrowed brow.

He watched the girl squirm and struggle, and he couldn’t help but wonder what she’d been asked to do. He wondered if it had anything involving her powers. Or himself. 

He stood up again. “There’s no way I’m letting you strap me down willingly. You only got me the first time ‘cause I was unconscious.” He glared at her. “You’re out of your mind if you think I’ll give you the codes to my work. It’s never going to happen.”

The noise from the bed rose over Rita’s reply; Benni’s protesting grew shrill as she realized what was about to happen. The doctor’s mouth pulled into a taut line of a polite smile; and made a short gesture to the soldier. “Private, if you would-”

The guard seized Greyson’s arms- it really only took a second from where he was standing with his military trained speed. Black, coarse gloves gripping into the crooks of his elbows while he yanked the inmate back into a chokehold and pulled a taser from his belt, pressing it to his back to release a swift shock. Rita was bending over Benni’s cot.

The deadly atmosphere plunged into flatline silence as the girl stilled, a small sob escaping as she tried to rub her arm against the metal bars on the side, as if a desperate attempt to rid her system of what was already flowing through her veins. She turned her head away as Rita whispered something too quiet for the other two to hear, and nodded feebly, biting back tears as she settled back down.

His elbow landed right against the guard’s stomach. The guard, who was wearing a bulletproof vest and Greyson, who was not. His body contracted, then went limp against the guard. The effects would only last for a few seconds, less for a man who was used to far more than a taser to the back, but a few seconds was enough time for the guard to slam him onto the table and fasten the strap over his neck.

After that, the rest of his body wasn’t hard to restrain. Greyson’s eyes darted over to the girl. She seemed to know what was going on. Perhaps she could convey the information via telepathy. He didn’t think so.

The feeling of the cuffs, even over clothed wrists and ankles, felt like hell. They were oh-so-cold, and he was getting more claustrophobic by the second. 

“What’s going to happen to me?”

Rita, after discarding the used sedative, had crossed over to Greyson, surveying his form with a sweeping glance or two and a disappointed click of her tongue. She didn’t answer, looking over his head instead to the guard. “Go get his identification bands- they should have been cleared by now with the paperwork.”

Once she was alone with the two prisoners, she pulled the scissors out of her breast coat pocket.

This time, there was no facade of gentility to the grip as she pulled his sleeve taut. “Given the context of our conversation, I thought it would be understood that you were to remove this. I don’t like having to do it for you,” Rita said lightly, movements sharp as she began slicing the fabric away. “Now, I’ll give you a choice. Do you want to be shown to your room to rest up? Or are we up for a little therapy before bed? We’re not going to be addressing your research until I’ve finished looking over what I’ve been given.”

He was already trembling- the taser certainly hadn’t been gentle. Once again, his entire body jerked against the restraints the moment there was anything metal and sharp near his wrist. But there was nothing he could do to stop his scars from being exposed as she cut the long sleeved facility clothes off his body, revealing the hundreds of scars coating his wrists. 

His eyes fluttered shut so he wouldn’t have to look at them or her. “Your shitty scrubs don’t have long sleeves, and they’re fucking fridged.” He spat with as close to a solid voice as he could manage.

“I’ll go to my room. I don’t trust whatever the hell your ‘therapy’ implies. Thanks.” His tone was laced with sarcasm. Even though he was 70% sure she has no concept of it.

Rita chuckled faintly, a disparaging sigh; she circled around behind Greyson, “We’ll have to see. Oh- and let it bear that your position here is going to be affected by your compliance to Cedars protocol- which we’ll familiarize you with quickly, don’t worry. For starters, we do prefer keeping our words with each other professional. Moving forwards, I’d like to find that I won’t have to remind you twice to keep an appropriately civil tone of voice. Unless you’d like it regulated for you, which can be arranged. Now, try to hold still.”

While she’d spoken, a soft, mechanical buzz had started up; a hand fisted into Greyson’s hair to hold it firmly while she lined the hair razor up to the side of his head, gauging silently where to start.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	45. Where I Draw The Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it’s a couple days late. Sue me. Wednesdays are laundry day. And yes, it’s a bit short- I misjudged the last chapter cut off. I’m going to get the next one out today to make up for it.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

He yelped. “Oh- nononono, cutting my hair is where I draw the line. There’s- there’s no way in hell I’m letting you cut my hair, so you can just fuck right off.” He jerked his head away as best he could, with the restraints and her hand in his hair. 

He knew what this was the start of, but he didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t want to know what his ‘room’ would be like. He guessed that it’d be the same as the facility, perhaps worse. 

“What, sarcasm tick you off cause you don’t understand it? That’s not my fault, is it, Miss Doctor Bitch. I doubt you even have a PHD.”

Dr. Fennel gave a hum as she listened, a musically disinterested note. She flipped the razor off and, the millisecond he'd stopped speaking, struck him with it. A vicious blow across the mouth with the chrome plated handle, strong enough that it might have snapped his head to the side had she not taken a doubly tight grip on the fistful of hair twisted between her fingers. 

"Very well. We'll finish this up and try some limitations for a bit," Rita said in an obliging tone, as she pinned Grey's head to the side and switched the razor on again, flipping it around to press it to his temple. 

The first few strokes were dangerously close to his ear- but, yanking his head back again, she began to work her way around his head, leaving his hair half an inch long, except where her hand gripped it- she left that part alone.

That forced a cry from his lips. It was unexpected- and it’d been at least three months since he’d last taken a blow like that. He could feel his blood flowing down the back of his throat, instead of coming out his nose. 

Greyson didn’t struggle again while she cut his hair. Her grip already hurt. Pulling wouldn’t make it any better. His once-long blond hair fell around her ankles, over the table, and onto his face. By the time she was done, he could feel hair down his shirt and in the back of his throat.

The haircut was messy, that was for sure, and he already missed the long hair that Marion had seemed to love combing through. It’d grow back, though. That is- if they didn’t cut it again. If he was there long enough for them to have to. Oh, he hoped not.

A different guard entered halfway through, bearing the requested papers, and setting them to the side at a word from Dr. Fennel. 

So far, they bore the same outfit as the other guards had- the unmarked black militia gear, rubberized guards on the canvas gloves, and dull silver holsters at their sides. They murmured a few words to Rita and she replied in succinct Spanish. They pulled from a pouch a pair of wristbands- looking almost like a slim smartwatch, but seamless and with a tiny metal grille installed over the glass plate both to protect it from breaking and render the screen useless to the wearer. 

The cuffs were snapped over his wrists, and Rita locked them shut with a few voice commands. 

Then she disappeared again, coming back with a gag in her hands. 

“Open.”

He blew the loose hair off his face as the cuffs were fastened on his wrists. “What the hell are- mph!” He pressed his lips together to keep the cloth from being forced into his mouth. He knew once it was in, it wasn’t coming out. The cuffs weren’t coming off, either. These people had had who-knows-how-much-time to develop prisoner-resistant restraints. He was sure they were fire resistant, too. That’s what he would have done. 

He didn’t know what to do. He was backed into a corner; they’d get that gag into his mouth eventually, and probably give him a concussion with the amount of times she was slamming his head down. He reluctantly let his mouth open.

The gag certainly was one developed for the purpose- sturdy rubber, large enough to muffle speech but designed so it could stay in for long periods of time without its wearer choking on saliva. Rita unlatched the neck restraint so she could slip the gag into his mouth, securing the straps behind his head.

"Your incarceration papers are ours now," she was saying, unrolling a short length of black jersey and securing it over Greyson's eyes- a blindfold, probably not inescapable, but still tight and tied to a tight knot behind his head. "You've been assigned a new I.D number- SV-35. Not all the doctors or privates here are going to know your name, so you'll respond to the number if it's used. I'll be checking back on you later. Take him to the water room."

The last thing Rita did was another injection- another knock-out sedative pushed into Grey's neck without warning, and then the table's wheels were released from their brakes with a few snapping noises and it lurched, starting off down the hallway.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	46. You’re Biased Towards Him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, another chapter today. Also short, but what can ya do when you’re skipping around?
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

The next day, it was a shrill buzzer that pulled Marion from his semblance of sleep. 

He'd left the window to his apartment open, and through the iron slats (bulletproof, just in case) the mid-morning city sun filtered in blinding stripes over the kitchen counters, where he'd finally settled after the third nightmare to rough the night out with a glass of water and his phone.

It was an officer from the sheriff's department downstairs. Marion felt a minute twinge of remorse at agreeing to locate his apartment above the city precinct, but it was helpful for when he needed to be pulled from sleep for work… like now.

Apparently, Luther wanted to meet him for breakfast.

After offering a half rueful, half obliging smile at the officer, Marion closed the door to get ready, and headed to the transport car.

He'd seen this one coming from a mile away- after all, what he'd done was (and he was fairly sure he'd be hearing the exact terms for a while from now on) unprecedented and disgraceful. That was alright; if he could weather the storm, he could weather the aftermath.

As long as Grey was healing. 

"Good morning, sir," Marion greeted politely as he set his bag down under the restaurant's table, and slid into the seat opposite the president's. "You wanted to talk to me?"

One wouldn’t expect a 5-star restaurant to be open for breakfast, but Luther seemed to know several, and picked out of the ones closest to Marion’s apartment. He was a man of simple efficiency, after all. 

He’d pre-paid the tab. He expected to be there a while, and the hassle of waiting for, and then paying the check was a waste of time. Time that could be used on better things. Like, say, checking up on a certain ex-super. He couldn’t be doing well right now.

He watched as Marion walked into the restaurant, clearly semi-awake and hastily dressed. His suit was crisp and sharp, just as it always was. His hands were folded on the table in front of him. 

“Good morning, Marion.” They were in public. It would be far from smart to use his hero name. “I did. I’m not going to beat around the bush here, per se.” He leaned forward just slightly. “We’re cutting your contact off from SV-35- or Greyson, as you know him. Permanently. You’re too unpredictable to maintain contact with him. Simple as that. You understand. Don’t you?”

Marion gave a loose little smile as he settled down, resting one elbow on the table with his chin in his hand, and looking out the wide, bay windows to the ocean sparkling beyond the cityline. The restaurant was open air, and filled with few other patrons at this stage of the morning, but Marion somehow wished there were. He could count the number of times Luther had used his real name, the number of times he’d been forced to keep his mask down in the man’s presence- on one hand.

His jaw worked a little.

“I understand my behavior was… not helpful. But Greyson and I- we tried to take into account the potential consequences of coming back. It’s in the paperwork I filed,” he replied quietly. “Permanent separation wasn’t on that list. I don’t understand that part- is this for his safety?”

“Your intermediacy was based entirely on his obedience. In other words- you only had power over him as long as he didn’t try to use that power for malicious intent. He gave up contact with you, and you gave up your place in his outcome. Any paperwork you filed was... filed straight into the trash, I’m afraid.”

He crossed his arms and sat back. “It isn’t for his protection, Marion, it’s for yours. He’s come between you and your duty to this city. You’re not permitted to see him or any other convict. Is that understood?”

Marion was silent, refusing to meet his boss in the eye as a waiter circled around to serve their food. He picked up his fork, breathed a sigh out through his nose, and set it down. “I don’t know that I can agree completely, sir. Due respect. Surely the changes we made weren’t too much trouble? With what we filed, he’d have been a ward of the state. He would’ve stayed in the same place, had the same surveillance. The differences would have been in his physical and mental treatments, his employment… therapy for his _ recovery _ . We wouldn’t be seeing each other anyway, until we’d both had professional help. Did you read them?”

“No, I didn’t read them. You’re biased towards him, and I have no choice to assume you’ve talked over some way to escape with him. Hope for the best, expect the worst, they say, and that applies to you too.”

“I can assure you that he’s at a location I can’t disclose to you in which his talents will be put to use. He’ll be fine.”

“Oh, and he’s blown your cover to about a dozen guards, a doctor, and another convict. And me, of course, but I knew you.”

Marion’s brow furrowed, alarm starting to creep through the back of his throat. His hands came down to lightly grip the edge of the table while he stared at Luther. “What do you mean,  _ put to use?” _

“I mean, he’ll be occupied. He won’t be sitting in a room in silence. I apologize if I didn’t phrase that right.” He took a bite of his fruit. “He does genetic engineering, correct?”

“Yes,” Marion found himself saying before his brain had caught up with his mouth. He stared uneasily at the NHU manager and then picked up his own fork again, taking the cue to eat. “He’s- yes. I think me and Al- Alex and I, we both took cursory looks through it before the info department took it back. He’s not going to be kept in solitary anymore, then? And he’ll be working with other scientists.”

“He will. We have a boy who works in genetic engineering, too. I’m sure Doctor Fennel will keep them busy- I hear they’re trying to make animals that can grow human organs for transplants.” This was a complete lie, of course. But Marion didn’t need to know that.

“...okay. As long as he understands, I guess. We can ask for confidentiality orders made for my identity. I’m sure Greyson was just scared; he probably didn’t know what was going on,” Marion murmured, remembering with distaste the way information seemed to be choked around the facility.

A pause, and then he looked up at the other man, serious. “Then, there’s no way I can at least exchange a few messages with him? How will I know he’s improving?”

“You won’t know. Your job is to catch the super villains- that’s it. You’ve already far overstepped your bounds and, frankly, wasted valuable time and resources. Do you realize how many people have been asking after you? You were gone for nearly two and a half days.”

“When I said permanently, I meant permanently. He is no longer any of your business.”

He quieted at the curt tone, his lips set in the barest hint of a frown. He turned to his food, and ate, keeping a close eye on the clock on the far end of the wall as an uncomfortable few minutes passed slowly by.

“He’s a part of this city, too,” Marion said finally, softly. “As much as anyone else.”

“Yes, and he’ll be working to help it. If he succeeds, it’ll be an incredible medical breakthrough. He’s part of the city, just not  _ your _ part. I do hope you understand that; we can’t have you distracted by him any longer.”

“I understand, sir,” Marion said, after long. There was some odd part of it that was making him feel like a scolded child, and he couldn’t help but realize the irony in being told to  _ stop _ hunting Greyson down after so many years of fighting to find him.

He stood, abruptly. “Was that all?”

“Hm? Yes, that was all. If you’re not going to finish your food, at least take it with you. Can’t do your job if you’re not healthy.” He took another bite. “It’s already pre-paid. You’ll just have to ask for a box.”

“Right,” Marion replied flatly, glancing down at his food. And then, after a moment, as he slung his bag up over one shoulder again, “I’ll just-” He piled the eggs onto the waffles, drizzled some more syrup over them, and rolled them up into a taco, shoving the last sausage into his mouth and muttering around it, “I’ll report to the precinct. Have a nice day,” as he left.

Luther sighed slightly. People were staring, after all, and Luther wasn’t exactly an unnoticeable figure- the people of New York knew him. They didn’t know Mari. They would probably be left wondering why the president of the NHU was having breakfast with some college-aged kid.

Marion was a bit too preoccupied to notice any stares, lost to his thoughts as he wandered back out. A simple google search didn’t turn anything up for a ‘Dr. Fennel’, and he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in his gut that had nothing to do with syrup slathered scrambled eggs. 

He hefted the phone- the secret, non-work phone- in his hand, and then slid it into his pocket, making a mental note to ask for a new one later. One that Luther and his co workers could actually contact. He noted, with a flat sigh, that the car there to pick him up was one of his judo trainers. He could already see the curiosity clouding the man’s eyes as he leaned over from the driver’s seat to pull the passenger door open.

It was going to be a long day.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	47. Don’t Let Me Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re getting close to Marion’s escape! I know you’re all eager for it. For now, enjoy the pain.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Corvid trailed a blade down his sternum, turning and twisting it and leaving a curved, thin trail of blood straight to his navel. 

He had Marion cuffed down to a cold, iron table, completely immobile. His hair splayed out over the metal, and Corvid couldn’t resist a little tug on the black locks. 

“Still in there, sweetheart? I’ve only barely started, you can’t be passing out. I’ve got something special for you today. I think you’ll like it, at least for a little while.

Marion’s breath was coming in short, shallow punches. The hero moaned softly, his struggles more a primal reaction than genuine fight. He couldn’t move his head, but he wasn’t sure if it was tied down or just unresponsive, long with the horrible pins-and-needles effect the restraints held over his arms and the half-sticky, half slick feeling of his own blood pooled under his back.

He whimpered softly at the voice. Nothing more- just a noise of fear.

“Aw, poor thing. Don’t worry, this will make the pain go away.” He pressed an IV tube into his arm, and held up a bag. The tube was closed with an electronic clamp. “This is a mix of saline, dopamine, and serotonin. It’s bliss. Pure bliss.” He hung the bag next to him.

Corvid then cut his shirt off and pressed wired pads to his chest, arms, and stomach. (None to his head, though- he didn’t want to cause brain damage.)

Corvid then held up a button. “I’m going to put this under your hand. When you need more- and trust me, you  _ will _ need more, press it. It’ll give you more, and send a shock through your body. Just a little one.”

It wouldn’t stay little after the first time. 

Corvid pressed the button- the first time didn’t send any shock.

Heaven flooded through his veins. It was a thousand times better once it hit his brain. The pain cleared- all of it. He couldn’t feel anything but euphoria. It was overwhelming, especially after the lack of it the last 10 days. 

What kind of horrid drug was this?

He was fighting through the daze. He could see, blearily, what was happening, felt the cold punch of the needle through his arm and knew his breath was going harsher as he was stripped of the pretense of normalcy the burgundy stained shirt had offered.

“Wh-” the hero gasped out, head turning ever so slightly to the side, hand clenching around the device automatically. “What are y-ou-”

He never got to finish the sentence, because it broke off into a long, low whimper. 

Marion’s back arched as much as it was allowed; mouth set to a mixture of shock and restrained noise that still rumbled like a late summer storm at the back of his throat. The drug waylaid his body to rigid stillness until he remembered to breathe and broke into panting groans as he writhed against the restraints.

And for the first time, the visor flickered a little- a fraction of a second, too quickly to catch anything, a wall of something succumbing for a fraction of a second.

“Don’t,” Marion begged breathlessly, around a short cry as another intoxicating wave of it washed over his system. “Don’t do this, don’t-”

“It’s funny, really.” He leaned on the table, watching him writhe in pleasure instead of pain. “I’m sure you’ve gone through plenty of training to build up a tolerance for pain. I’m sure you know just how to keep all the information in that pretty little head to yourself. But look- you’re already breaking. You don’t have a tolerance for something that feels this good, do you?”

“It’s up to me how long I want to leave you like this- and how to let you down. I could just... unplug it. Cut you off, cold turkey. But that isn’t any fun. You’ll probably pass out- I did. So I’ll let you down slowly, okay?” He carded through his hair, his touch too gentle for a man who could come up with sick stunts like this. Not that Marion was paying any attention to his hands.

“Try to stay quiet for me, love. I have some work to do, and I can’t exactly do that if you’re moaning like a bitch in heat.”

Marion gave a gulping sob.

He'd made the mistake of thinking that the drugs numbing his powers- the ones he'd already been pumped full of- were as bad as it could get. Oh, and he'd been wrong. The two narcotics worked against each other- raising his heartbeat and dulling his senses, stringing his body along some captivating fulfillment while he could still  _ feel _ the agony of injury.

There was a dark flush raised in his cheeks; his hands, moving spasmodically, must have pressed the button on their own the first time because and he clamped them into fists and strained forwards as much as he could- metal table creaking under him- the shock was harsh. 

Marion screamed, the husk in his voice cracking brokenly as he collapsed again. When the white cleared from his head he heard his own voice, as though it were a separate thing- pleading.

_ "Don't go,"  _ it was saying. He didn't know why. He couldn't stop it.  _ "Don't go, don't leave, please- please. Don't…" _

“Aw, you’ll miss me, won’t you? Don’t worry, I’ll be right over here. I’m not going anywhere.” He disappeared somewhere behind his head. Once he was out of his line of sight, he slid a finger under the edge of his mask and pulled it off. Marion would be too lost in the firing of his own nerves to realize he’d done it, or remember his face if he saw it. 

_ If this screaming keeps up, I’ll have to gag him.  _ The thought crossed his mind the same way someone would remind themselves to grab more milk at the supermarket, or make a note to adjust the leaky faucet. There was no difference to him.

“We’ll see what you start saying when you  _ really _ want this to stop. It’s only starting. Oh, you’ll be begging me to go back to the darts.” His voice echoed from somewhere behind him, ricocheted around his head like a bullet. 

And his grip on lucidity was waning. Marion could feel the fragmented pieces of his mind, the sharp and desperate edges that the pain hadn’t reached yet- slowly turning on him. 

He could have spent five minutes there, or five years, for all it seemed, for the loss of his senses and sanity, the obliterating back and forth tug of warring sensation, the pain, the phantoms of voices and shadows slithering through his otherwise blinded field of vision.

Marion’s mouth was moving, pleas spilling out to fall into an uncaring universe- and they could have been silent, or screaming. He wouldn’t have been able to tell even without the stuttering, desperate throb of his heartbeat in his ears. Twice more his hands, moving on addictive drive alone, pulled clumsily at the trigger. 

And Corvid tuned him out. He tuned out the screams and the begs and the cries. Tuned them out like one would tune out the cries of the city outside. He tuned it out. 

It was a long while of that; of the shocks getting worse each time he pressed the button, and yet it was impossible to stop. Corvid has made sure of that.

But then the serum  _ ran dry _ . And just like that, the shocks were still going, but none of the pleasure joined it. Everything got ten times worse- withdrawal that he’d gotten no time to recover from, coupled with worse shocks every time he pressed the button.

After a while, the screaming grew hoarse- bone-chilling. Marion was calling blindly, for his mother, for his friends, for someone to save him. He was too far gone to remember that no one would come. 

Slowly, the thrashing died out. His body grew still, still twitching in the throes of the electricity that he couldn’t stop. And then Marion was crying again, jerking back and forth on the table, and it was creaking again- the metal groaning under his resistance.

The sickening crunch of bone, and a soft spattering noise of blood.

He’d dislocated his shoulder, by the looks of it- struggling to turn his arm enough to push the switch out of his hand, to the floor with a feeble clatter. 

It was only once the switch fell that he realized what had happened. He spun around in his chair, his eyes going from the button on the floor to the empty bag still trying to pump into his veins, to Marion, bloodied and bent in a position he shouldn’t have been in, a position he wasn’t in when he’d started his work.

“Oh, Love.”

His chair rolled from its spot at his desk until he was sat above his head. “That’s no good. I didn’t mean to tune you out that long, I’m sorry darling.” He uncuffed the dislocated arm, then pulled the IV out of the other arm none too gently. “Easy. Focus.” He snapped his finger next to his ear. “Come back to me, sweetheart.”

Still sobbing, the man cringed away. There were no tears- maybe he was dehydrated or maybe he had just run out. The voice swam dully in his head until it hit a part of him that was able to recognize it, and he turned his face towards Corvid as much as it was allowed to move- gasping desperately.

“I’m going to fall, don’t let me fall. Don’t let me go. I don’t wanna lose control. I can’t,” Marion whimpered nonsensically. “Can’t, I can’t, I can’t, it’s too much. I  _ don’t wanna fall.” _

He hadn’t put his mask back on yet, but he didn’t think it’d be too important. His gloved hands ran over his cheeks, his hair. Brushing it out of his face. His hand went straight through the visor even when his eyes couldn’t. (It was a shame the damned thing was still there but what could he do?)

“Easy, easy love. It’s over for now. You’re okay. You’re not going to fall.” He uncuffed his other hand and the head restraint so he could pull himself up onto the table, then Marion’s head into his lap. “I’m not letting go of you. No matter what. You’re safe with me.”

He turned into the hands on his cheeks, making a helpless noise. His hands twitched; only the unbroken arm was able to reach up, shaking, and fist loosely into the fabric of the cape pooling about the villain’s figure. His breathing was erratic and strained; he was clearly still in a blind panic despite having quieted down at the touches. 

“There... there we go... the withdrawal is going to be rough for a bit. I didn’t mean to leave you like that.” He rubbed his thumb in circles over his cheek in an effort to calm him. There’d be a couple longer term effects of the serum; cravings, and difficulty adjusting back to creating his own dopamine, which certainly couldn’t be easy to do here. It was essentially a couple of symptoms of long term drug abuse in 30 minutes.

The prospective was lost to him; Marion’s mind was frayed to the last nerve and it was the one impetus behind his desperation. He hadn’t felt this lost to the fear, he knew, since he was a child. Hadn’t felt nearly  _ as _ lost, for the pain suffocating him again in a way that didn’t even pull him closer to reality.

Marion clutched feebly onto the one sensation that didn’t betray him. He held onto the cape until his breath went to a stuttering huff, and his eyes, behind the protection of the mask, rolled back into his head, and he slumped into Corvid’s lap, unconscious.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	48. We Don’t Lash Out With Our Fists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter today. We get a break from the torture in the next one- and a new character! I think you guys will like Charlie. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough! 
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

When Greyson did wake up, he wasn’t quite sure if he had actually done so. He shifted, in completely darkness. His mouth tasted like salt and his jaw hurt from the gag, and his eyes stung with the feel of salt water too. Water. He was in water.

He couldn’t hear anything. 

Not the splash of the water when he moved, not the sound of his hand hitting the wall, not even a thump in his ear from his own heartbeat. Nothing. 

Was this death? Was this what death was like? Was he dead? 

He couldn’t be. They wouldn’t kill him- they needed his codes, his work. He couldn’t be dead.

Maybe it was an accident. Maybe they’d killed him one way or another when they didn’t mean to. 

His eyes fluttered shut- whether intentionally or not was debatable. 

Dead.

Dead meant he’d never see Marion again.

Dead meant that his last kiss, before he got in the van, was really his last kiss.

Dead meant he’d never have an apartment upstate or a little lap dog or kids.

Never learn to swim or go to Rome or bike the Appalachian mountains.

Never spend any more time with Marion.

He’d never learn what real love, what long-term love felt like. 

He wouldn’t get to wake up at his side or go to sleep in his arms or fall asleep watching a movie on the couch. 

And yet all he could think was  _ thank gods he didn’t have any more time to love me. _

_ Thank gods he only had a few days with me. Otherwise, he’d never be able to get over me. _

_ Gods, I hope he gets over me.  _

Dead.

The blackness was overwhelming; the silence suppressing. Not intensely so- the water was skin temperature. It left nothing external to be distracted by. Hypocritically enough for Greyson’s captors, he’d been taken out of his scrubs at some point while he was unconscious. A small cord was attached to a collar around his throat- loose, small and barely perceivable, but keeping his head from being able to slip under the water line. Similar ties kept his hands from being able to reach his face- and the collar and gag by proxy.

And it stayed that way.

Time was a loose flow- it passed, or maybe stagnated, environing as surely and imperceptibly as the water to be abstract of purpose.

Nothing, but just barely enough something to keep him awake with his thoughts.

He only discovered the cuffs and the collar when he tried to sit up, and discovered that he couldn’t even pull his hands in. He couldn’t touch the bottom- no matter how far down his feet managed to get. 

He firmly believed he was dead. 

Maybe this was hell, or some version of it. When he thought of hell before, he thought he’d be forced to relive the deaths of all his victims over and over again, or maybe he’d be stuck in his father’s basement for eternity.

Not this. He didn’t picture this.

And this, this was so much worse. 

Of course, he thought. This makes sense. His mind was the worst torture of all- and with no stimuli, nothing to distract him, he only had his mind. 

He started to drift off. The same way he used to. His dreams of Jacob- or Corvid, as the public knew him- were different than from when he was a child. He knew what heroes were now. And so that’s what he pictured Corvid as. 

But now, he found, his dreams had evolved again. He no longer delivered vigilante justice, killing those who deserved it with a flick of a wrist.

He was a sidekick. Euclidi’s sidekick. 

And Greyson found he was okay with that.

The ebb and swell of the water, as his body moved, was like everything else- imperceptible and inconsequential, until it wasn’t.

The shift in atmosphere might have been tiny. Just a change in temperature or in the little splashes, before the tank lurched and a rush of air entered. Gloved, impersonal hands were there, then, gripping at his arms, his neck, his legs. The cords were loosed, and he was hauled out and dropped into a wheelchair. Only his arms were locked in place on the rests. The blindfold was replaced with a dry one. And then they were moving him again, and it was the feel of a descent, into air that was more frigid.

He only caught a glimpse of the tank, of the doctors around him, before he was blinded again. Had he been in better condition, he might’ve connected the dots sooner.

A tank. A tank of water. A tank of water that felt like he was dead. Oh, he knew what it was.

And he was in no mental state to stay in one for an extended period of time. He didn’t even know how much time had passed. 

The gag was dripping over his bare chest and into his mouth, but he couldn’t taste the salt anymore. Couldn’t feel the pain in his jaw.

What he could feel was his bare chest. Bare chest, bare legs, bare arms. The boxers they’d given him the courtesy of leaving on covered nearly nothing. That meant his scars were on full display for whoever they passed. 

He burst into tears. Screaming, sobbing into the gag, jerking against the restraints on the arms. He felt exposed. He felt skinned. When everything else broke down, his clothes were his last line of defense.

And, well, he wasn’t broken yet. But he knew they were working on tearing his defenses down.

The response to this was, as other things here, needlingly indifferent to the point of being anti-climatic. The people about him ignored him at best, voices speaking only to each other in short, sharp orders.  _ ‘Open the door.’ ‘Get his head back.’ ‘Hold him down.’ _

Indifferent, until the force of the struggles uspet the wheelchair enough to almost tip it. 

It was jerked upright with a expletive, and a hard blow landed into Greyson’s side as he was told to  _ shut up and hold fucking still. _

They stopped in another room. Briefly, he was given a chance to use a bathroom, and then rinsed free of saltwater with the sprayer nozzle of a hose and two relentless pairs of hands gripping his arms on either side to hold him upright. 

Greyson was pressed down onto a bench, at a table. Only then was the gag taken off, and as his hands were secured to the metal on either side of him, something was pressed to his mouth- dry, and lumpy, reminiscent of a granola bar, maybe. “Eat,” came the clipped order.

His cries reached a crescendo once he was hit, but he stopped struggling. His teeth dug into the cloth between his lips, some part of him hoping to tear it. 

Greyson took advantage of the opportunity to use the bathroom. His brain was already going into panic mode; who knew when the next time he’d get to use the bathroom was? Certainly not him. 

He knew that defiance, resilience, would only make things worse for him. But if he gave them an inch, they’d take a mile. More than a mile. 

His mouth opened to protest, but that was when the sorry excuse for food was shoved past his lips. It tasted horrendous- like some combination of oatmeal and ground meats. He chewed bitterly, though. The last time he’d eaten was, what, dinner at Marion’s appartement, before they’d left? He was hungry. Once he’d swallowed, he tilted his head towards where he assumed the nurse or tech or doctor was. “I’m not- I’m not giving up the codes.”

“I heard you the first time, dear,” replied Rita, pleasantly, from somewhere right behind his head.

Her footsteps hadn’t been audible, so maybe she’d been standing there for a while, but she didn’t care to explain herself, the rustle of papers being stacked on the table pinpointing her location as she moved to perch on the bench a foot or two away from Greyson. The crinkling of plastic wrapping and the rich smell of a deli sandwich permeated the air, and she took a bite and swallowed before speaking again. 

“You know, Corvid, I’ve been putting some thought into your current position given your repeated refusal to cooperate,” She hummed, “It seemed odd to me that you are so obstinately against helping us, especially considering that you have not been briefed in regards to what we here at Cedars are trying to accomplish with our genetic research. Are you aware of what the NHU’s information department theorized as far as what  _ you _ were going to do with what you’d discovered?”

“I-I have an idea of what you’re going to do with it.” He tugged at the restraints. These weren’t basic cuffs or rope. They were metal, and made for him. And not cushioned in the slightest. It hurt to pull at them. 

His lack of sight severely impaired his perception; he leaned his head back to rest it on the back of the seat. 

“If you get access to my codes, if you can manipulate powers the way I was trying to, then you’ll create overpowered heroes, right? Heroes that are unstoppable. Heroes that won’t be afraid to hurt villains or vigilantes. And that would mean that all those villains and vigilantes would get hurt the same way you’re hurting me. And if- if Euclidi,” It hurt him to refer to Mari that way. “If Euclidi is your strongest hero right now, he won’t be anymore. He’ll be replaceable. And then what’s stopping you from disposing of him?”

Brief silence, and then a chiming laugh, “Oh, sweet mercy! Well, I suppose innovators like you must possess a certain amount of imagination,” Rita giggled. “Or maybe you just like watching those adorable little conspiracy theory videos. Either way, our purpose here is a little less exciting than world domination, or species extermination. Is a task force of tax-payed heroes really all that terrible an idea? Did you know that there are superhumans out there with the ability to reverse the depletion of the ozone layer? To dive deeper than submarines, to feel the things animals are feeling- I mean, you’ve  _ met _ an actual being with the ability to shift the very fabric of reality. We have a healer who can mold people’s bodies like play-doh.”

She huffed shortly. “Your research, Mr. Calva...it’s the Da Vinci’s anatomy of this science. It’s another little piece in the puzzle to where these incredible abilities come from. If we know how to tweak these powers, to control how the mutations develop in the DNA...think of what we could make. We’d finally be able to turn those villains and vigilantes around into heroes that uphold our world instead of throwing it into chaos. We’d be able to take these cells and turn them from ephemeral, evolutionary freaks of nature into something our world can actually  _ use. _ ” 

“And you will use them. You’ll work them to the core, you’ll let them get hurt, you’ll tear them apart, and no matter how much they want to leave, to live normal lives, they’ll feel indebted to you, because you’re the ones that ‘saved’ them.” 

“You didn’t deny that you wouldn’t kill Euclidi. You would, wouldn’t you?”

He scrunched his eyes up, trying to push the blindfold away. “Sure, you could do a lot of good, but at the cost of what? The heroes’ sanity? Their lives? There’s only so far you can go into perfection before we’re in a utopian teen novel.”

“Well, and of course the  _ ethics _ behind it all will develop as our knowledge does,” Rita continued cheerfully, as she took another bite of her food. “The politics, the laws, the infrastructure of our culture- everything’s going to change. You and I are the pioneers of the driving force behind all of that; you of all people know how much we have to  _ learn.  _ It’s really a pity your academic pursuits weren’t a little less lethal, otherwise we might not have to use such… precaution with you. But that can change, once you prove yourself loyal.”

The doctor gave a warm laugh, standing up and moving behind Greyson to fiddle with something metallic that clanked lifelessly as she picked it up. “Oh, I don’t mean to prattle. This stuff is just so riveting! I can’t wait to get it out of you. And once we’re through and you’ve worked off your debts, there’s no limit to what you could do here at Cedars with us! Provided you put in a little work to learn the rules.”

“Oh, I don’t believe for a second that you have any morals whatsoever. You threw me into a sensory deprivation tank for who knows how long, and what you just shoved into my mouth was hardly food.”

“I don’t owe you anything. I don’t have to give you anything. I won’t give you anything. I-I should have known that such a scientific breakthrough would be awful in the wrong hands. I should have just killed myself when I was 15...”

“Need I remind you that you do, if fact and on paper, owe the federal court and the City of New York a substantial amount in property damage fines alone,” Rita droned, and suddenly, jerking his head back, she pressed the cold muzzle of a taser gun to his neck. 

“Perhaps you’re still in the mindset they undoubtedly allowed to slip in during your stay at the NHU.” The voice, though still sporting it’s sales clerk cheeriness, had gone vicious somehow. “Make no mistake, Cedars Labs doesn’t cut corners when it comes to productivity. Everyone is here for a reason, and we all play our part in our little machine. You are no exception. I  _ will _ be expecting progress from you for the duration of your stay, and if you resist we will continue to employ corrective measures. Do I make myself clear?”

He was still blindfolded. And the muzzle of a taser didn’t feel much different from the muzzle of a gun, when pressed under one’s jaw. 

“Expect whatever you’d like from me, I’ve been through a lot of shit in my 23 years. I can take torture. I can take pain, I can take sorrow. I don’t- I don’t care.” He shifted, at an attempt of pulling the blindfold off. “When I say that I will protect Euclidi with my life, I mean it. I’ll die for him. I don’t care. His life is worth far more than mine, I think you know that.”

She clucked softly, disapprovingly. Leaning down, with the barest hint of a smile tinging the tone, she murmured, “That’s what I thought. You are used to putting a price tag on lives, I take it? We’ll have to see how you like bartering.”

The taser bit into his skin for a few seconds, heating as it charged and fired its pulse. It wasn’t meant to stun him this time- it was for the pain, pure and simple. 

Rita gave it a bit to wear out, moving away as she spoke. “The blindfold stays on, unless someone else takes it off. If you behave, we’ll get you a new pair of scrubs after this session.”

The noise he made when his muscles tensed, then spasmed uncontrollably, wasn’t a scream. It was more of a groan, and then just the sound of Rita working with whatever it was that he’d be hurt with after he’d managed to silence himself. Gods, how he hated the sound of his own screams. 

“Yes, I get that.” His voice was just a bit rough. Just a bit uneven. “But I still want it off.” He leaned forward so that his head was next to his hands, and tugged it off his head, tossing it onto the floor. He blinked. The lights were fluorescent, of course, and he struggled to adjust to it.

As the light (blinding, but piercing through only a small circle of the oppressive shadow the room was cast in) swung gently to and fro overhead on it's industrial chain, Rita turned from the table she stood at with a disappointed noise. 

Her face was passive, and the toothed edge of the slender blade in her hands grinned prettily in the low light. She gestured, and a pair of arms- the assistants from before- were unhooking him from the table, dragging over to the wall to secure him there instead. 

She followed, her eyes raking over Greyson's body. Her lip curled a little in half fascination, she let the sharp tip rest lightly against his bicep and trace over the ridged, starburst pattern, then up to a faint, fading bruise at his throat. "I would think you would have preferred to have all these covered. Did this hero of yours like to play rough?" 

He didn’t bother to struggle. He knew when he was beat. 

...But Marion had never stopped fighting. And this was only the beginning. 

He didn’t know if it was worse without the blindfold. Everything was so bright and it was so loud and everyone was moving so fast and the blade was so shiny and their eyes were all over his body. All over his scars.

He managed a slight smirk. “You should see the mark I left on him. I’d say I did well for my first time.”

"Oh, so you wanted it. I'll have to inform Luther that his hero's misconduct runs deeper than he assumed," was the return, and she pressed the knife in harder to trace along one of the fading lines down his chest, the smooth puncture dragging a little through the thin stream of red that welled and trailed down the blade shaft. "I was referring more to the other marks, however. I imagine returning the favor after all  _ this _ must have been quite cathartic."

“Is that somehow worse than if I hadn’t wanted it?” His eyes followed the blade, forcing out the slight waver that was creeping into his voice. “Is it worse if he wants me? Because he wants me. He loves me.”

Gods, he needed to stop talking. He was making this worse.

"Of course he does, sweetheart," Rita gave the man a tiny smile, dragging the blade down to lay the notched edge flat against his chest and begin to push in so the teeth bit in, "That's why you're here, isn't it? I am sure your hero just wants the best for everyone."

He didn’t wince. He didn’t have to. Wincing just made things worse. “He doesn’t- he doesn’t know I’m here, does he? He thinks I’m at the facility. Right?” There was- there was no way Marion knew what was happening to him. He couldn’t know. Otherwise, he’d be out of here by now.

The smile turned pitying for a second; condescending. “Aww,” Rita crooned softly, and then, ignoring the question, “You called him Marion? Nosy one, isn’t he? But this isn’t about him.”

“I’ve finished looking through your samples and the files- oh, and those cute little diaries of yours. It’s all terribly jumbled, of course, but I inferred from what was in English that you stored a lot of the test results from your alteration trials digitally.”

The knife pulled downwards. There was red welling up under each little jagged edge now, biting into the skin in a way that would rip it open if she pulled much harder. “Unfortunately, there weren’t any digital files sent to me. No laptops, no hard drives.” She paused, raised a brow, spoke firmly. “I want you to tell me where I can find them.”

The diaries he was okay with her reading. They were in English for a reason, even after he developed the code. It was the hard drives he was worried about. And he knew exactly where they were- with Marion. In his secret apartment. And on them was enough video evidence of him torturing Marion that he’d never be able to prove he was anything other than a monster. “If you don’t have them, then Euclidi must have destroyed them when he blew up half my lab. Or Corvid did.” Greyson hoped the lie was convincing enough. He didn’t meet her eyes, but he didn’t want to watch the blade either. 

He shifted a bit under her blade, but there was only so far back he could push himself against the wall. He planted his foot on her stomach and kicked. Hard enough to knock her into a table.

Greyson was strong enough, and Rita small enough that she hit the table with a thud and a slight yelp, stumbling down onto the bench before she could regain her balance. The woman’s hair, frizzy and dyed pink, slipped a little more out of its tie. 

A fist swung into Greyson’s jaw with a hard crack- the attendant from before, and a swift kick to his ribs followed, and they would have continued with more had not the woman thrown out a hand-  _ “¡Detener!” _

She got to her feet, slowly pulling a piece of hair out of her mouth, and the murder in her eyes cleared after a second to a clipped, sunny expression. She waved a hand, tacking something else onto the end, and while her people made themselves busy chaining down the rest of Greyson, she stalked over to where the knife had fallen, the metal stained the same hue as what was now trickling down the agitated wounds in his sides. 

“Rule two, dear,” The woman continued conversationally, “As we don’t lash out with our mouths we don’t lash out with our fists. Feet- you know what I mean. This is a  _ professional _ setting. As that was fairly contextual etiquette, we’ll be correcting you for that. I’m sure we can work it in.”

Oh. His jaw had to have broken, if it wasn’t the attendant’s fist. But the attendant was wearing gloves- gloves that would protect him. Greyson didn’t have time to spit out the blood in his mouth before they roundhouse-kicked his already bruised ribs. At least that time, he didn’t think they broke anything. 

He spat the blood in Rita’s general direction (and missed her by a long shot), along with a molar. So that’s what had cracked. He tongued at the space where it had been. As he spoke, his whole head hurt. If he didn’t have a concussion yet, he was on the way to one.

“Sorry, I don’t appreciate a knife anywhere in my general vicinity. Kindly keep that away from me.” He mimicked her overly joyful tone and expression. “Manners aren’t my priority when you’re cutting me. Sorry.”

Twirling the knife to reverse grip, she yanked aside her coat to slip the blade momentarily away, and pull a slim case out of a pocket. “Oh, see? That’s better; I knew you could be polite. And you know what? This reminds me that I’ve also finished whipping up your medication! It’ll help you keep your limbs to yourself.” Rita lauded the fraudulence with a little clap or two, as if she were praising a dog who’d just rolled over, and slipped yet another injection out of the case. It was in his system in a matter of seconds, and the knife was digging, point first, into the tendons connecting Greyson’s neck to his shoulders. 

“Now, let’s circle back to that research.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	49. He’s Not Safe. He’s Not

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re finally back! This chapter’s a bit short so I might add another tonight. 
> 
> Meet Charlie! Badass bitch but not as bitchy as Alex. She’s on the lower end of the bitch scale. I love her.

Okay, so she had to admit this was the craziest thing she’d ever done. But she had to do something.

Charlie had been a caretaker in the Facility since she’d gotten out of nursing school, which meant she’d been working there far longer than the last 3 months. Those 3 months, in which Corvid had been... detained? Housed there? Either way, she’d taken care of him. She’d seen how he just lit up when Euclidi visited. She’d heard Marion tell him his name. 

That was how she’d found him. Marion Arturo Joel Giovanni, from what he’d said to Greyson. There was only one person with that name in the city, and from the looks of it, his apartment was above the police station, which could definitely be a hero’s apartment. She walked in. 

“Excuse me, could I talk to Marion Giovanni? He’s in the apartment upstairs, I think.”

The public entrance was large and well kept; white and blue tiles on the floor spelling out the department name and matching the shades of color on the wall, covered with the NYPD posters, brochures and plaque. Fake potted plants lined the walls; air conditioners hummed unobtrusively behind them. 

Of the two men chatting to each other at the end of the long front reception desk, one gave her a blink or two, and then coughed slightly, muttering something about getting back to work before he disappeared into the back. The other one pushed off the counter.

"...'fraid there's only one residence upstairs, ma'am, and it ain't who you're looking for," he replied, with a bit of a Louisiana drawl. "Can I see some I.D?"

She gave a dismayed look. She should have expected it wouldn’t be that easy to talk to him. “I know exactly who it is up there, and I need to speak to him.” She adjusted her messenger bag. “I have something important to tell him.”

She couldn’t leave without talking to him. She couldn’t leave without certainty Greyson was safe. He was one of her patients. And it was her job to make sure he was taken care of. 

“You don’t need to see my I.D to tell the resident I’m here.” She had her facility I.D, if she really needed it. She worked for the NHU, that had to be enough to let her up.

The man gave her a long suffering look, and then slid back behind the counter's glass partition to settle at a computer, "Even if there were anyone up there right now, this area is considered sensitive, ma'am. We need to get I.D from everyone when they come in, for safety purposes. If you're here to talk to a detainee I'll need their full name 'n date of arrest; otherwise, I'm afraid I can't help you," he replied clearly, speaking over the clack of his keyboard and the whoosh of summer air from people entering and exiting behind them. 

"Unless you'd like to schedule an appointment with one of our human resource specialists who can help you out with any specific concerns. But I can say for certain there ain't no Marion fella up there."

The squeak of rubber soles halting sharply against the tile made the officer look past her shoulder, and his bushy brows shot up. 

"She's alright, Jer," came the familiar voice, and Euclidi stepped up to the counter to fish a keycard out of his pocket and hold it to the gate scanner leading off down the hallway. "She's with NHU, we're working on a file together. Probably looking for our case detective. If you don't mind coming with me, miss," the hero lied, holding the gate open for her. 

She was about to protest, about to exclaim that she knew it was Euclidi in the apartment, and that she’d talk to him if she had to beat their asses into next week to do it.

She didn’t get to say any of that. Part of her would have liked to. 

Instead, she glanced over his shoulder, and had to hold back a groan. Of course, the big strong hero had to come save her. It didn’t matter that he was the one she needed to talk to. 

She followed him past the gate. Some part of her had thought this would be harder. Another part thought it’d be easier. Both parts completed blue screened on what to say to him. 

“I-“

"I would save it for a second if I were you," the man interrupted firmly, glancing down the hallway into the department office before he ushered them out another door into the gated parking lot where the extra police cars were kept. Then, it was a biometric scanner he pressed his palm against, stepping into the little hallway at the bottom of a single flight of stairs. 

As soon as the doors were closed, he turned around to face her, arms crossing. 

"I recognize you," the hero said flatly, "So I've already got a hunch. But I really need to know where you got my name, please, miss."

It took her a moment to gather her words enough to explain herself. “...Greyson would light up so much when you talked to him. I overheard some of it, I couldn’t help it. I swear, no one else knows.”

If she got his autograph right now, she could save it for her nephew, when he got older.

She wasn’t going to ask. 

“I... I need to know that you’re still keeping him safe, because he’s not in the facility anymore. Luther came to get him himself. Paraded him around in a blindfold and gag and cuffs. There’s no way it could be anything good.”

In the low light, the shadows pulled his figure to an outlandish proportion, lending credence to the undercurrent of awed fear that some held to the 'mutants'. The visor flickered faintly at her words, brightening in some alien response even as he stayed silent for a drawn out second. 

He was white-knuckling the strap of his bag. 

"So you tracked me down all the way here," the hero said slowly, "To make sure he is alright."

A twinge of fear coursed through her system. If he could hold off Corvid for five years, it wouldn’t even take a snap of his fingers to dispose of her. 

“He’s my charge.” She kept her voice even. “He’s a sweet, sweet boy, and I’m sure you have him taken care of, but I need to know he isn’t being hurt more than he’s already hurting!” Her voice rose toward the end. She couldn’t help it. 

“My name is Charlie. I’ll give you my phone number, then I’ll let you handle it. I’m sorry for caring, but you’re the only one I could think of.” She pulled a napkin and a pen from her bag.

The figure simply stared at her for a second longer, as if processing the words, and then he shook his head, "No! No, that's-"

He swayed. 

The visor fell, and the shroud of unnatural power with it, leaving behind a bleary eyed and serious Marion. 

"He's not safe. He's  _ not _ ," the man half whispered, assessing her with a crease to his brows, "So I want you to tell me now, is that  _ really _ why you're here. Because I am not in the mood to put up with any more bullshit right now and if I find out they sent you to me as another one of their precautions…"

Her passive aggressive tone fell almost as quick as his visor had. “I work with the NHU, but I’m just a nurse. I personally think they’re doing a lot of bad things for a good reason. Just seeing that boy there was enough... I’m going to help you save him. However I can.”

She carefully set her hands on his forearm. “Let’s go inside, okay? Sit down. Then we can do something.” 

This was odd. She’d seen him at soft points, but never at a truly weak point. Never like this.

The hero glanced down at her hand, and then nodded, silently leading the way up the steps to the last scanner before the apartment. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	50. In The Bay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a bit! Updating to make a certain someone feel better- hope it works- you know who you are. 
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough.
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

The interior of the apartment was a far cry from the worn industry of the department's back halls, but the polished, modern furnishing still lacked in personality. There was a light already on and a mess of papers and a laptop or two, malina files, photos, and newspapers covering the kitchen island.

Marion set his bag down, snatching up a few of them to stuff back into a file and lock away, but other than that he made no effort to hide the research he'd been doing.

He stood in the middle of the kitchen for a second, trying to remember himself, and then mumbled, "You want some espresso? I'll get some." 

She was a bit curious about what he could possibly have to hide in that file, but she didn’t push it. Instead, her eyes traced over the documents and articles. 

“You’re worried about him too.” It was more of a statement than a question. She sat down.

Charlie politely accepted a coffee- she was going to need one if they were going to be working together. “Do you... have any idea of where he is?”

"Working on it," he grunted in reply, dunking a piece of ice into the espresso shot as it pumped out of the machine and tossing it back efficiently.

He came over and set hers down, along with a little tray of the additions, and began to shuffle through the maelstrom. "He was taken to a different facility the morning after he arrived. Lab, from what I gathered. Working with a Dr. Fennel now. I've been looking all over, at every lab in this state and the next few over, I can't find that name anywhere," he began to explain. 

"Not normal. Not legal, either.  _ Normally. _ I've got someone looking into it. In the meantime, maybe you could help me out with something."

He pulled a photo off the top of a stack, plopped it down in front of her- a blurry motion shot of a mid-thirties man. Mild eyed, dressed unassumingly in a rumpled brown suit and calmly smiling as he rushed up the steps of a bright yellow school bus. 

"You sometimes come into contact with the info department, right? Passing reports along. Recognize this guy?"

“Dr. Fennel... sounds familiar. If you don’t have access to their file, then I probably don’t, but I could’ve sworn we’ve gotten a couple transfers from them.”

Then, lowering her voice. “Those patients are the reason our suicide watch is so vigilant. The longer they had with her, the shorter they lasted with us.” 

Well, that certainly wasn’t optimistic. Greyson was already in a bad state. 

She examined the picture. “No, I don’t recognize him. Who is he?”

The hero's head jerked up, his eyes sparking for the first time, and he shifted on his feet, barely patient enough to wait for her to finish speaking. "Transfers? Good- I can work with that. Is there any way you could pull up a record, get a number?" 

He paused. "...I can get us into the department. I was there before. Technically I don't have clearance to any of these files. There's nothing there on a Dr. Fennel, or this guy. But his name's popped up once or twice, Cecil. Just Cecil. And I get a feeling about him. Recognition, maybe." 

“Well, they do say gut feelings are often correct...” she murmured. “Cecil... Cecil, Cecil, Cecil... he might’ve had something to do with one or two of our patients, but if you can’t find anything then it’s not going to be in our systems. I can check the video logs and the guest records, maybe? Those will be hard to comb through, though. We’ll need more than two people.”

“The transfers, they always talk about Cedar trees. Maybe the facility he’s in is somewhere remote. Upstate, maybe? The transfers we get from there don’t come often enough for us to wait for another.”

Marion hummed faintly, eyes flicking over a notepad he'd been scribbling in.

"I know it's in New York. Luther's jurisdiction doesn't go past the state lines; he couldn't maintain the facilities anywhere else."

He looked wearily back up at her. "The rest of these files need to be searched through for the names and places I need. Once I'm- we're done- we need to pack it up and leave. It's not gonna take them long to miss all these."

“You’re  _ Euclidi _ , though. Won’t they notice you’re missing, if we just go searching for him upstate? I could probably get away unnoticed- I’ve got some vacation days I haven’t used and a viable excuse, but you’re on the clock 24/7, right?”  _ God, that must pay like a bitch.  _

“What are we looking for, then? Cecil, Cedars, Dr. Fennel, and possibly anything to do with Luther?”

She shifted to open a file, scanning over the front page.

The hero's bittersweet huff of a laugh faded to seriousness again and he nodded, "Yes. Anything pointing towards possible locations associated with them. Once my contact gets back to me with what she finds we'll be able to narrow the search; until then, it's just you and me."

He sat down and riffled through a binder-clipped stack of meeting minutes, then pulled the first page out. 

The flat was, for the most part, soundproofed of white noise, unlike his other apartment- no traffic outside or neighbors or humming refrigerators or ticking clocks. Marion hadn't really noticed before, because he didn't care to spend much time here outside eating, cooking and sleeping- and usually not with another person. 

"Did you-" 

Marion broke the silence to run a hand through his hair, shifting to sit cross-legged in his chair before he flipped the page over. "Did you two talk much? Did he talk to any of the other staff? He always told me it was too quiet in there."

Her eyes scanned the page like a robot’s, searching for keywords. 

“Err, no, we didn’t talk much. He didn’t talk to any of us much. We talked to him, but it’s hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t want to talk about his past and whose life is exactly the same every day. We more talked in front of him than to him.”

She spread the sheets out. It would be easier if she could see it all at once, go back to it. Line by line. 

“My sister had a daughter, just a few months ago. He always perked up when I talked about her- she’s got her dad’s eyes, gorgeous little thing. He liked hearing about the mundane. What I got from Starbucks, the kind of tea my husband likes...”

“I should’ve made more of an effort... God, that room hurt my eyes whenever I went in, and the mural...” she closed her eyes and rested her head in her hands. 

"....'mundane' can sound like heaven to a person who's led their whole life with powers like his. I think you did more than you know." 

The man didn't look up until he'd finished that page- the sleep deprived caffeination (and maybe a little leftover inebriation from that morning) made his eyes grainy. 

He glanced over at her again, "The important thing now is finding out what they've done to him. And if it's a lab...I'm willing to bet there are other supers there too."

“What is it they wanted from him? If Luther’s visit to him personally was anything to go by, he’s got something important. A ‘lab’ could be code for anything. Another facility, a prison, an interrogation sight, or even an actual lab. Maybe all 4 at once.”

She turned to another sheet. “This says something about a Dr. Fennel. Says Fennel started as an intern at Cedars... so it’s a place, not a detail. Cedars... We could try google maps?”

She doubted it’d be on there, but one could never know. It was worth a shot, either way.

Marion seemed to share the same sentiment, passing a hand over his face though he nodded assent and pulled a laptop over to punch the search in.    
“They want his research,” He answered shortly. “A lot of the work he was doing on genetic rewriting, alteration- specifically the origins of the mutation strains that develop superpowers- was all written in some kind of case-specific cypher. He was smart enough to realize that he wasn’t the only one to want it, so most of the physical evidence was gone and the only way they’re going to get it out of him is if  _ he _ translates it for them. He doesn’t trust them with it, though. Neither would I, anymore.”

His voice grew strained as he spoke; quiet. “I didn’t think...I didn’t think they’d go this far to get it. I didn’t think- god _ dammit _ ,” he hissed lightly, reigning in the choked noise and turning his head to the side as if to fight back the blurriness that suddenly closed his vision. 

“We need to find him. I need to find him.”

She set her hand on his shoulder. “He’s strong. He evaded you for five years, he can handle this. And we know they won’t kill him if they need him to translate. We’ll find him, Marion. We’ll find him.” 

She pulled out her phone. Her signal wasn’t the greatest here, though. She typed in google maps. “Cedars New York.”

At least two dozen results all over the state. This could take them a week or two...

“There’s only so many places for them to hide. Perhaps if you could keep an eye on Luther, too? He’ll lead us right to him.”

He stayed quiet for a bit, then hummed a soft ‘maybe’. 

“I think we can rule out the pastry shop- for now. Parks are worth a shot. So’s the city.” And then- glancing back up at her with a stronger undercurrent, “Charlie. You know this is dangerous, right? What I’m doing right now is, as far as Luther is concerned, against the law. Tracking down a high-profile target like this, it’s- well, I just hope you understand what you might be walking into if you stick around.”

“I know. I’m not going to stand by and let corruption take over. If I can do something, I will. And I can do something. I can help him. ‘S only my job after all.” She laughed softly. “If he didn’t want me to come after him, he shouldn’t have assigned Grey to me.”

“So, parks first, then. Those will take a while to search. They’re also quite public, though... I can’t imagine it’s easy to hide a government facility in a park.”

“The insides of those maintenance buildings can be big from the inside. You’d be surprised.” The hero let his lips quirk a little in the barest hint of a sad smile as he listened to the woman speaking, and he turned back to his work, writing down each location’s address in case he lost his laptop later (he doubted there would be spyware installed on it, but at this point he wasn’t sure how many risks he was willing to take), and then turning back to the papers. 

“...thank you. Though if it does turn out Luther sent you, ma’am- with the greatest possible respect- I am going to dump your ass into the bay.” 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	51. My Name Is Greyson. Marion Is Coming For Me. He Loves Me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’d say happy thanksgiving but I know how weird it is to be reading this any time other than the day it’s published so happy food day. Go eat something. Stay hydrated.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough
> 
> ENJOY  
> -Loki

“I think I’d deserve it.” She laughed. Charlie turned back to the papers in front of her. “Oh, but if they regularly transport prisoners to and from there, then there’s gotta be a garage. It’s too risky to unload passengers, even at night, and force them into a building.”

She fidgeted with her hair. “And Luther escorted him personally. If we can get a time when he was gone, we can get a search radius.”

“Could be a lead… I don’t know how I’d figure that out, though- it’s not like anyone’s keeping a log on him and cornering his security personnel or anyone he works with could be risky. He used to put tracking devices in my clothes- I wouldn't put it past him to have his staff bugged too,” he mused. “But I’ve looked into searching his office. If I can get in, there’s bound to be something worthwhile there.”

“How do you know he’s not still doing it? How do you know...” she murmured. “...your apartment isn’t bugged?” She wouldn’t put it past Luther. Tracking devices in his clothes were understandable, sometimes. Not all the time. Probably not to the level Luther must’ve had it.

Marion looked up again, then stood, shaking his head as he crossed to the fridge to find some accompaniment for the coffee. "You know Gigahertz? Super from Seattle, manipulates energy waves. They had him set my apartment up with some weird signal box- no sound waves, in or out of the walls. As far as I know I can't be remotely tapped, there'd have to be some kind of recording device they'd sneak in and out physically."

He set a tray of cold cream pastries and a bowl of fruit onto the table and settled back down with a huff of a chuckle, "Which is why it's also nigh impossible to get a cell signal in here. I intend to do a last sweep over this place before I leave for good, though." 

“You’re a busy man. And very trusting. I wouldn’t put it past them. If they know we’ve got information, they’ll just move him again. But there can only be so many facilities in New York, right? And you said Luther’s confined within those borders when it comes to work.”

“Oh, but the NHU is the  _ National  _ Hero Union for a reason. Everyone in the country knows who Corvid is. It wouldn’t be hard for him to convince another state to hold onto him while we’re looking. Especially if he doesn’t have powers anymore.”

She ran her hand through her hair. “We have to be fast. Especially with just the two of us.”

"Not just two. But you're right." he flipped through yet another paper, setting one aside to inspect closer, and picking up his phone again. "I'm going to update my contact. Maybe she'll be able to tell us more about Cedars." 

“Who’s your contact? And what about that girl that came in with Luther? She any help?” She flipped over a page. Nothing. She found nothing.

“I’ll have to try to get into the info department. I’ve got a friend or two there.”

Marion, brow creasing minutely, let the phone down as he finished texting. 

"Alex is gone," he said simply. "The NHU is going to issue an internal rogue alert if she doesn't come back by tonight. My contact...I'm sure you'll come to know in good time, if she decides that's what she wants. I'm sorry I can't say more."

He stood heading for the door. "...things are about to break loose. It's only a matter of time."

“I guess this is the calm before the storm, then.” She stood. “The closest ‘Cedars, New York’ is a few blocks away. Shall we get started?”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

Greyson couldn’t pinpoint exactly what this ‘medication’ was doing (and that was probably one of the effects, confusion) but whatever it was, it was absolutely genius. The effects were something like what he’d imagine his drug cocktail did to Marion. It confused him. It dizzied him, it wrestled with his mind, never winning, but occupying him enough to only maintain half control of his bodily functions. 

His feet had been cuffed down, despite the drugs, so that he couldn’t make another attempt at his little stunt. 

There was a sharp metal rod of varying width and length in every one of his pressure points that was available while his back was to the wall and he was strung up by his wrists. The blood dripped in minuscule amounts at a time to the drain in the floor below him (practical. It would’ve been smart, in his base.)

With each question that went unanswered or defied, she gave a tap on one of them, sometimes harsh, sometimes light. Each time, Grey wanted more desperately for Marion, and each time, he had to resist the headache setting in from holding back a switch, and the panic purely from the situation. He wasn’t crying yet, but he was damn close. Just another thing for his mind to struggle with.

The attendants had been dismissed; they were alone. The cuffs affixing his arms out if the way beeped every once in a while, matching rhythm with the heart rate monitor. An overhead light shone, white and blinding to illuminate the canvas of skin, the dull glinting steel of the needles quivering in their places, their hollowed ends welling with fat, crimson droplets before splashing to the ground.

She was just a silhouette at the moment, fiddling with the tray of instruments.

“I want to know about the mutation strains, Corvid,” Rita asked, even and disengaged, for the second time- or maybe it was the fifth. Another in the endless, dizzied, looping chain of questions bombarding the man.

When she moved back, her gloves were still stained and her lab coat was buttoned fully over her cardigan to keep pinprick droplets from splashing onto it. She pinched a rod protruding from his chest, rolling it between her fingers, then tracing up to the one sunk into his throat, the faintest nudge as she hovered over it a menacing promise. “Tell me how you pinpointed the biopolymers that create them.” 

He drew quiet, shaking gasps. The weight of each rod pulling against his skin, wobbling as he trembled. He’d forgotten he was meant to be spitting back sharp replies and insults, and now was just focused on not screaming. 

“M-My name isn’t Corvid.” He whispered. “Or SV-35, or whatever d-dumb nickname you want to call me.” His fingers flexed. “My name’s Grey. Mari’s gonna come for me. He loves me.” He’d taken to repeating that, over and over again in his head.  _ My name is Greyson. Marion will come for me. He loves me. _ He’d said that to Dr. Fennel more than he’d given her anything even remotely worth her time. 

Marion was keeping him going. Marion, and the knowledge that they’d keep him alive because they had to. He couldn’t give them the codes, or they’d have no reason to keep either of them alive, and that couldn’t happen. So he’d hold on, for Marion. To keep him safe.

“That doesn’t answer my question, dear.” This time, she tapped hard, then pressed her thumb down over the steel- not letting up until there was blood trickling down into the creases of her gloves. 

“Tell me about the organic DNA samples you took. Where did you get them and where did they go? Who were your test subjects?”

He avoided biting on his lip- chapped or bleeding lips weren’t too major of a wound, but they could be annoying, and another thing for his mind to toy with, which he really didn’t need.

Instead, he clenched his teeth hard. The back molar that’d been knocked out hurt like hell when he did this, but it’d hurt like hell either way. 

And at this point hell-like pain was hardly the least of his worries.

“My name is Greyson. Marion’s going to come for me. He loves me.” He said through gritted teeth.

Her head fell to the side in a disapproving tilt as she tapped again, humming low under her breath. She stepped back. 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	52. Just Because We’re Tired

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Torture is fun, fun, fun! Feat. Benni and Ms. Doctor Bitch. This one’s a long one, too, cause I cut the last one too short.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Stretched out as the man was, his arms pinned above his head, the metal rebar sunk into the concrete, he was fully on display, and Rita’s eyes shifted over his body in a disinterested calculation as she picked up the compression gun she’d used to sink the needles in.

It was slim, precise, and strong- the air canister that powered the shots beginning to hiss slightly as she plucked another needle up and loaded it into the compartment. It’s canister clicked in place with a metallic noise. 

“Let’s talk about this hero, then. Did you take any of  _ his _ DNA? Did you find anything different about it? How did it hold up to your testing?” As she spoke, she unclipped the strap holding his midsection to the wall. The air gun was pressed into his side, and released with a thick release of air as it sunk the metal into his side. 

Greyson  _ whined _ . He could feel the metal rod and its dull, pointed tip, slide into his skin. It didn’t hurt instantly- the metal was cold, and the room was cold, and everything was so cold that it numbed him for just a few, anxious seconds. Then his nerves flared and the pain kicked in.

It wasn’t the rods he was most nervous about- for right now, she was leaving them in. It’d be worse when she took them out. He grimaced at the idea of the now blood-warmed metal slowly sliding from his skin, replaced with salt or lemon juice or whatever else this sadistic woman seemed to want to rub into his wounds. 

He wanted to reply to her questions, almost. Even just to tell her that no, he hadn’t studied Marion’s DNA, even though he could have. Even though he’d lied awake at night wondering how delightful it’d be to see his enemies face for the first time, stricken with horror as his powers were stripped. 

He didn’t tell her any of that.

“My name is Greyson. Marion’s gonna come ‘fur me. He loves me.”

“You had to have been doing  _ something _ in there,” The woman mused, almost as if to herself, as if she weren’t reloading the gun without hesitation for the prisoner caught in her clutches. As closely as Greyson’s feet were strapped to the wall, it was easy to slip a hand behind the small of his back and tug forwards, pulling him out of balance. She felt around until she found a nerve point, replacing it with the gun soon after.

“Trying formulas? It would make sense, given  _ his _ mutation type. What about the brain function? Surely you must have thought you could find a way to manipulate it if you were to have any chance at all to rid yourself of your powers.”

Three more times, as she spoke, was the gun discharged. Three more needles, among the larger and stronger ones, placed across the small of Greyson’s back- so that if he wanted to stand stable, he would have to push himself against them to regain his center of balance against the wall. 

“I didn’t touch him!” He cried as he leaned just barely against the wall when she removed her hand and it took him a moment to get in a position that would keep his back off the wall.

“I-I left him out of the experiments, cause gods forbid I have a reason to keep him alive if I’d needed him dead...” he gasped. “Take those out, fuck, take those out!” Greyson screamed. The rest were dull, throbbing pains. This was sharp. This was attention-grabbing, and not in a good way. 

This finally made him cry. Through the sweat covering his face, his tears dripped onto his chest and mixed with the blood, singing pain into wherever they managed to dig their way into a wound. 

He didn’t sob, at least. He knew that if this went on, his soft crying would turn to great, gasping sobs, but at least they weren’t there yet.

Rita’s lashes lowered fractionally, eyes hooding over as she stared at the man. She reached over, gingerly plucking up a new needle, and lowering it to his line of sight as she began to load it up. 

“I know you tested things out on yourself, Corvid,” She said. “And I know that neither you nor Euclidi could use your powers against your own bodies.” The woman’s voice carried over- she was stepping around to his other side, and reaching up to yank him forwards so she could push one into his upper back too. 

“You were immune to your own disease. Tell me about that. Were you trying to find a way to override that immunity? Did you think you could find anything in his body that would help you?”

“I-I don’t understand the question...” he murmured. “Hurts, hurts so bad, too bad, take them out, for fuck’s sake, take them OUT!” He writhed against her grip, pushing a couple of them further in, and the movement causing one in his arm to fall out and clatter to the ground. The blood poured into his face and eyes and mouth, and he spat blood and spit into the puddle on the floor.

“T-th-there's only so far you can push someone before they can’t t-think- trust me, I-I I should know...” he breathed. “Stop, make it stop, give me a break...” he whispered. 

His back arched, as far forward as the restraints let him, his arms strained hard to support his weight. “Please...”

Rita wasn’t smiling- wouldn’t have smiled, the cartoonish villainy of sadistic triumph too far out of reach. But there was a dark, knowing kind of unamused victory in her eyes as she set the gun down with a soft clink, and pressed a button on her belt. 

She ignored it as two guards entered almost instantaneously, and reached down to pinch one of the needles in his back and roll it slowly back and forth between her fingers. “Answer one more question, dear. One more; it’s not hard- and you’ll get a break.”

She pressed it in. Flicked it up deep into the meat of the nerve.  _ “What is your name?” _

He whimpered quietly. He knew the answer she wanted- she wanted him to admit he was a villain, a monster. 

“My name...” he gulped. “Is Greyson. Nicholas. Calva. Marion’s coming for me. He loves me.” 

Greyson closed his eyes, then. 

“And you might wanna take the needles out of my back... I tilt the right way, and I’ve got a severed spinal cord...” he didn’t look at the soldiers, either, but he had a feeling they wouldn’t give him the chance to try to walk on his own when they took him down. 

He didn’t bother to look at her again. Her eyes were worse than anything he’d seen. And yes, Corvid had been bad, but there was something far more unsettling about someone being merely indifferent to torture, rather than responding with anger or glee.

Another one of those calculating hums; a sharp, ringing pinch as the needles were yanked out of his limbs so he could be dragged away from the wall. Rita leaned down and pressed a cloth against Greyson’s mouth- the damp gag slowly soaking in blood to stain it and ever deepening pink as someone grabbed him from behind to force his mouth open for it.

“If your hero came- and he will not- and he was given a body,” She murmured quietly, “It  _ would  _ be your own fault. Your name, Corvid, is SV-35. I want you to think about your attitude before our next session.”

And he was pulled away from her; the needles being removed as he was taken from the room.

He knew better than to try to spit the gag out. It’d only make things worse. Wouldn’t help his situation at all. His eyes fluttered shut again as he was dragged down the hall, the needles and rods pulled from his back and chest and stomach as he was. 

He’d expected a cell, or a room, or something. Not this. 

The cuffs were attached first, then restraints on his ankles. Greyson was moderately confused, but too drowsy from pain and the drugs to really think.

And then he was thrown back into the tank, the cuffs attached to their places against the wall, and the door was shut. The saltwater burned more than anything he’d ever done to Marion, he was sure of it. 

His screams echoed in the dark chamber, but would be nothing more than a muffled shout to the guards outside.

Saline, and fire, against raw flesh. 

The blackness was no less total than before; the chamber bereft of sound but for the man's own cries and the splashing water, the executioner of the pain, which sent burning shafts into the sluggishly weeping wounds, sanitizing without the cauterization. The water would be stained, by now. 

Perhaps the only way to lessen the pain would have been to lay still, and calm the agitation of the water moving over his wounds- to lie perfectly still, and let the fire die down. But wasn't that the point? It was the caveat of the institution; the two 'choices' dangled in front of his face. 

Submission, or pain. The inflection of the doctor's voice echoed in the splashing water.

Some part of him belatedly realized that if this was where they sent him when they sent him to his “room” then this would be his only chance to sleep. He shifted, then again in an attempt to get comfortable, but there was no comfort in floating in salt water, covered in holes.

He waited anxiously for sleep to come to him, but the small tank seemed to be lacking of it. 

His mind drifted to Marion again. He could be doing anything. Sleeping, maybe. Oh, gods, he didn’t know what time it was. 

Did Marion even know where he was? Did Marion think he was safe in the facility, waiting for educational rehabilitation?

Or did Marion know exactly where he was, and was perfectly fine leaving him there? Thankful to be rid of responsibility without having to say anything to him? 

Greyson didn’t know which was worse. 

“My name is Greyson.” He whispered. “Marion’s going to come for me. He loves me.”

The wait was long this time- dredging on moment after stretching moment that flatlined to oppressive darkness- though however many hours had passed, it was not enough for the wounds to close up substantially.

They didn’t seem to care when they took him back out, though- if the harsh grip on his blood riddled arms was anything to go by. 

For a second it was the pure, harsh light spilling in from a hallway, the faceless hands pulling him out and shoving him into a hospital gown, the cold lump of the steel restraints securing him back into the wheelchair. 

Greyson was taken again down long, winding corridors and on one or two elevators, and into a room, the shuffle of footsteps and the murmur of voices swirling around as the thin bands around his wrists were connected to chains in the wall, securing the wheelchair loosely in place before they receded, and the air grew quiet again. 

And then, a little voice- shaking and somewhere else in the room. “Are you- are yo-ou okay?” And then- “I’m allowed to take off the gag, if you want…”

By now, he was used to the harsh grip. The lights were nothing new either, but they still gave him an instant headache that forced him to squeeze his eyes shut, and even then, it didn’t block out all the light. 

He didn’t open them again until his wrists were secured and everything had stopped moving so fast. The room looked more like what he’d expected- more like his cell in the facility. And curled up in the corner was the little girl they’d introduced him to before.

To be honest, she’d slipped from his mind completely- and he was almost ashamed to say so. Benni, her name was. He nodded silently, then tilted his head down so she’d be able to reach back and untie the now-red cloth.

Even though she’d been the one to ask, the girl still hesitated, her eyes skittering over to the closed doorway once or twice as she crept over. The gag was meant to be temporary; that much was clear, and the knots had been pulled tight. It took her a little bit of picking with shaky fingers before it came loose and she pulled it away, backing up quickly.

She stared at him, her mouth working for a second before she muttered, “Have they given you any water? I have some.”

He wet his lips and tongue, his mouth still full of the cottony feel of the cloth. “Keep it.” He said instantly. “You need it more than I do. They’ll give me some before I really need it.” He shifted, testing the restraints. 

“Benni, you said your name was? How long have you been here, Benni?” He was terrified she’d been here so much longer, been so much more hurt. She didn’t seem to have any scars that were  _ too _ bad, though.

Although she didn’t reply out loud, Benni nodded in confirmation. “I don’t know. A while- longer than you. I don’t know,” she replied quickly, face twitching a little as she went to curl back up against the wall, watching him warily. Her own blue-green gown puddled around her feet and her boney hands wrung at each other.

“You said your name was Grey?” 

“Greyson, yeah...” of course, he couldn’t have expected her to know how long she’d been here- Greyson didn’t even know how long he’d been here. It wasn’t very easy to tell time in the tanks, after all. “Why are you here? Did you do something bad?”

If she were a hero, she wouldn’t be here unless she did something to deserve it in their eyes, and if she were a villain, he’d probably have heard of her. 

Most likely, she was a civilian. A super who didn’t lean one way or the other, or maybe didn’t have powers strong enough to do anything particularly useful as a hero.

Benni’s face crumpled a little at the question and she shook her head, hands lifting to clench at it as if to block something out or hold something in, “I don’t- I didn’t do anything! I don’t  _ know, _ ” she said miserably. “They w-wanted- want my powers but I don’t-”

Her chest heaved a little- as dull as her eyes were, the girl seemed on the brink of tears already, all of the sudden. “Didn’t  _ want to _ and I  _ told them! _ No one ever listens. I’m not sick. I’m not a bo-oy-” the last syllable drawn out into a little sob- “-and I don’t want  _ to use them-” _

“Hey, hey...” he said as soothingly as possible. “I’m not accusing you of anything, alright? Their criteria for something ‘bad’ and mine are two different things. Besides, I’m hardly one to talk. You probably know me better as Corvid.”

He’d have stood and went to kneel by her, if he could’ve moved. But he was restrained to words- not that he didn’t have plenty of experience being unable to touch someone. 

But then, he had a distinct lack of experience comforting someone. 

“What are your powers? Why do they want them so bad?”

Benni turned tearful eyes back up to his face, confusion flitting in sync with the nervous tic of her hands. The drawn out pause was mostly her trying to work up the courage to speak again, and when she finally spoke up, it was in a softer tone 

"I'm- I'm a psychic. I can sort of- speak other people's thoughts," she admitted. "They...use me when they want to know somethi-ing." her voice broke again, lilting upwards. 

"You're Corvid? The Corvid?" 

That unsettled him. Both the idea of a little girl digging through his every thought and memory, and knowing that if they could coerce her into it, he wouldn’t have a choice in whether or not he’d give up the information. They’d just pull it from his head.

“Mhm. That’s me. I’m don’t- I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry if I hurt someone close to you...”

Benni shook her head, "Don't feel bad."

The conflict was clear in her features, uncertainty and a pinch of nervousness bundling her tighter into her corner as she gripped onto the wrist bands she wore- identical to Grey's in everything but size. 

"What- what happened?" She flinched a little after blurting it out, but didn't rescind the question, her gaze skirting guiltily off to the size as if she regretted the imposition.

“I... failed. Not much more to say. About 4 months ago, now. I’d captured Euclidi and held him for 2 weeks, thought I broke him. I didn’t. He’s... about as strong as he looks.”

“He saved my life, honestly. He came and visited me. Without him, I’d still be tearing my own skin apart at the facility. Or here, with no hope of rescue.”

“And he’s-he’s going to rescue us. He won’t just leave you behind, I swear.” 

Benni’s brows had slowly furrowed as she listened, and she lowered her head into the arms wrapped around around her knees, eyes sliding away along the floor to stare at some far point along the wall. 

Her demeanour, as beaten and frightened as it was, showed a flicker of helpless anger. “No one is coming to save me.  _ They’re _ the ones who  _ put us here.” _

“He’s different. When he comes for me, he’s going to realize how awful the NHU is. And- and he’s against hurting children. 100%. There’s a reason they keep the heroes out of the messy part, after all- they’d fight back too much. He’s going to save you, and me, and whoever else is in this goddamn place. Alright? Trust me.”

“He was appalled at the way I was treated in the facility, and that was 10x better than this. He won’t just leave us here.”

But Benni just shook her head. Stubborn and soft, refusing to hear or maybe just refusing to believe, and she buried her face in her arms for a long minute or two, shoulders jerking once or twice.

“Different,” She murmured finally, a solemn look in her eyes that were ageless instead of innocent. “That’s why we’re here. We’re different and we can’t do anything about it. That’s why we’re here.” 

She didn’t get a chance to say anything more because the door flew open and she blanched, plastering herself further against the wall and burying her head in her arms again. The guards (maybe the same ones; maybe new ones- their faceless helmets were all the same) swept in to set something down on the table and stand by the door for a moment, but they were quickly replaced with the frizzy pink hair and neutral pleasant smile of the head doctor.

“I see you two have been having a nice chat. I hope we all slept well,” Rita said cheerfully, rifling through a clipboard folder as she seated herself on the little, fold-out cot in the corner of the room.

Greyson certainly flinched when the door slammed open, but he couldn’t exactly curl into a corner like Benni. 

His eyes followed the doctor (whose face was starting to nauseate him) to the cot. He could infer by the comment that he must have been in the tank overnight- so they probably wouldn’t give him a regular cell. He hoped the emptiness was something that could be gotten used to. 

“ ‘s Mari at your doors yet? He’s going to find me. He’s not just going to leave me here.” It certainly hadn’t felt like he’d been here long, but it also felt like it’d been weeks. He couldn’t tell anymore. Maybe it had been. Maybe Marion had given up on him.

“I don’t believe we’ve had any luck with any of that, dear,” the woman murmured in a pleasantly distracted tone, as if Greyson were an insistent child tugging on her sleeve. She finished whatever she was doing and looked back up at them, “Isn’t this exciting? Our first session together as a group. Why don’t we both try to be a little more ready to participate than at our last ones, and I’m sure this’ll fly right by, okay?”

Benni whined a little from where she was curled, but she began to slowly unfold herself, hands clenched in her lap as she stared at the floor with a single nod.

He squirmed in his chair. Knowing what he knew of Benni, now, he could only assume Dr. Fennel was going to try to pry the codes straight from his brain.

“I wouldn’t call it exciting, but sure. Could you let me up?” He tugged on the cuffs for emphasis. He couldn’t understand why he was restrained. He was too drugged to really hurt anyone, and there were guards right there. But you could never be too secure. He knew that.

“I’m afraid you’re still on trial basis after your behaviour last night,” Rita replied. “Which is alright; it’s perfectly normal to be nervous getting to know a place. I’m sure once you start learning how things work around here you’ll settle in and then we can talk about easing up on the restrictions. Isn’t that right, Benni?” 

The girl’s face pinched a little more; she gave another dull nod, hands clenching and unclenching in her lap and Rita crooned a pleased noise. “Good! So, where did we leave off? I think you and I were talking about the DNA we collected from our studies-” Benni turned her face away, an almost sullen expression flitting across it- “And SV-35 was helping me understand a little of what he did in his old lab, so it’s not too far a subject jump! Think you’re both ready? Let’s begin. SV-35, Benni- close your eyes for me.”

“I wasn’t helping you with anything, and I’m certainly not doing anything you say. Benni, don’t listen to her.” He glared at her. “You’re not getting anything from me.

I’m- I’m not helping you to hurt other supers, supers a lot less guilty than I am. Not happening.” 

He turned to look at Benni, and mouthed “Please.”  _ Please don’t let her get what she wants. _

There was no indicator Benni heard anything they said- she was silent, and rigid as a mouse caught in the pantry as Rita stood with a small sigh, pulling a blindfold out of the box the guard had left on the table. 

There was little room for him to struggle, and even so Rita seemed to prefer the efficiency of snagging the single longer chunck of hair and dragging it back to hold him while she tied him in place. “Alright.” 

Her voice moved back to the cot. “Let’s start with something simple, sweetie. I want you, Corvid- to think about the last thing you ate. Remember how it tasted, how it felt in your mouth. Benni?”

There were a few shuddering breaths. A long round of silence. 

“Protein block,” Benni muttered, almost inaudibly. And then, “That’s the  _ only _ thing we eat here.”

If there was a way to keep her from the information she wanted, then perhaps... he could do something. He just had to keep his mind off the codes. On something else.

His mind filled with images of Marion, but that would be too easy to be distracted from. He needed something simpler. A phrase.

_ My name is Greyson. Marion’s going to come for me. He loves me.  _

He did his best to block out the sound of her voice. Just repeat the phrase in his head. He didn’t quite know how Benni’s powers worked, but it was worth a shot.

The smiling voice and timid replies went back and forth a few more times; Rita asked about her own last meal. Benni said fruit salad. What color were her socks? Grey. What time was it?   
  
Benni was silent again. “I don’t- I can’t tell,” she whispered, finally.

“Okay,” Rita sighed a little. “Tell me about SV-35. What does he think about your powers?”

“I can’t-” Benni’s voice pitched a little higher. “I can’t  _ tell. _ ”   
  
“What is he thinking about?” 

“Someone he cares about,” Benni whispered shakily. “Please, can we-”   
  
“Let’s try again,” Rita replied, and in a moment there was the prick of a needle in Greyson’s neck, and the freezing cold of an icepack a second later at his nape. “Let’s try...thinking about our last session. Benni, where was he? What was he doing?”

For a second, the thought of the rods piercing through his skin flickered through his mind, and he was distracted by the ice on his neck.

Then he jerked away and forced his thoughts back to Marion. His lip trembled. 

He could probably guess what the drug would do- blur his thoughts. Make it harder to focus. But even thinking about that drew his thoughts away enough for Benni to get  _ something _ .

Benni pulled in a sharp breath, and then several more, but she didn’t say anything. Rita chased after the man with the freezing sensation, slipping it in between his back and the wheelchair, where it quickly began to seep through the thin fabric of the scrubs.

“Benni,” Rita lilted, the undertone of  _ something  _ creeping back into her voice, which the girl was apparently familiar with, for she gave a stuttering hiss, “I-I need- just a second. I can’t- I can’t--”

“I think you can,” came the reply. Rita’s shoes clicked across the floor and Benni whimpered, and then said, faintly, “It’s all fogged up, this hasn’t- ever happened before. I don’t know. I don’t know… it’s all pain. It’s like there’s somebody else in the room with us. I can’t  _ think _ .” 

“Benni, stop.” He insisted. “If-if it’s going to hurt you, then stop.” He writhed in the chair, arching his back to get away from the ice, then turning his thoughts back to Marion. 

He didn’t want to hurt her, he truly didn’t, so he did his best to ignore the pain. But the more one tries to force a thought out, the more intrusive and repetitive it becomes. 

He could feel the wounds seeping blood, realized his gown was probably pink by now, and he was still mostly soaked with salt water, which was doing no help for his pain. 

And the more he sat here withstanding it, the longer it felt. The longer each second seemed to take to tick past. At least his thoughts were on anything but the codes.

"It doesn't- hurt me--" Benni insisted immediately, but it was broken with a shaking gasp, sharp punches of air starting to escape as she shifted again. "Please don't t- please don't touch me." 

"Hold still," came the ever familiar reply. Rita moved back to the other prisoner then, gripping his head to pull off the blindfold and face it towards the girl. "Let's try another round of questions."

The session lasted another fifteen minutes. Anything Benni said was written down, and by the time Rita set her pen down, the girl was trembling harshly and on the verge of tears, though she remained stubbornly curled in her corner. 

Greyson had tried his best to keep information from her, but he wasn’t perfect- he rarely had to keep his mind safe from infiltrators. He hoped, for his sake, Marion’s, and every vigilante and villain in New York, that he’d done well enough. 

His wrists were getting sore from hanging, and the holes covering his body were hardly fairing well- there was a pink puddle of salt water and blood beneath his wheelchair, and he was sort of wishing he’d taken Benni up on her offer of his water. They hadn’t given him any, and he was getting thirsty.

“Are we done, then, cause I’m tired as fuck.”

Rita chuckled a bit as though he'd said something funny, “Oh, I think we're done with this half." The rustling papers discontinued as she set her clipboard down and peeled off one of the gloves, snapping her fingers once as she went back to the box. 

Benni flinched again at the noise, pulling in a shuddering breath and standing as if it were a cue to cross over and accept the pills handed to her with a dull gaze skirting the edges of the room. "What are you gonna do to him," she whispered faintly, swallowing them dry and pulling up her sleeve to accept the injection Rita was unwrapping. 

Dr. Fennel gave Greyson a smile. "Sweetie, that's between us for now. You know we'll have plenty of sessions to catch up with each other from now on."

In a moment, she'd finished up, and with the ever present finality of helplessness re-blindfolded him and took Grey's wheelchair to turn for the door as it was pushed open. 

Greyson huffed indignantly, but there wasn’t much he could do here. He just leaned his head back against the cold faux leather of the chair and let his eyes close. “What’ll it be today? Every  _ good _ monster knows you can’t use the same torture twice in a row- they get used to it. I can only imagine your next plan is just as creative as metal rods through the nerves was.”

He clung to his words the same was he clung to his memory of Marion. He kept every shred of dignity and decency and defiance held close. If he could just keep himself feeling human, if he refused to let their less-than-human treatment get to him... maybe he could manage. 

But that was so hard when he already felt half as much as any innocent man.

“Remember what we discussed about watching our tones, “ was the disparaging reply. “There’s no need to sulk just because we’re tired, Corvid.” 

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	53. McDonald’s Coffee and Sunrises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? Two chapters in two days? What’s wrong with me?
> 
> Also, I plan to undergo some serious editing and fix some inconsistencies (Greyson’s broken hand, the diaries, his eduction, etc) but don’t get your hopes up.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

The twists and turns in the hallways, the elevators and corridors were endless; very well and most likely to confuse and disorient him further, though there was purpose in her direction as well. The passive-aggressive, thinly veiled tortures were egging, mocking and corrosive, and every syllable and barely disguised look said she knew it. 

“I think today we’re going to talk a little about your last few months in the facility before you came to us. You were held at Luther’s correctional facility, weren’t you.”

“My name is Greyson, and I don’t care if you’re offended to high heaven cause I’m being a little sarcastic. Be offended all you want.” He would have spat at her if she weren’t behind him.

He didn’t bother trying to keep track of where he was going anymore. It’d change every time- he wasn’t even sure if this lab was the same as the last one. And he hadn’t seen an exit yet, so even if he partially knew where he was going, he’d have no better chances. 

“Why are you asking me? You’ve got to have records on this shit. And all the camera feeds. You don’t need to know anything from me.”

“On the contrary, I think the first person perspective is almost always the more interesting.”

The wheelchair jerked to a halt as she slammed down on the foot brake. The hands were back then, dragging him up, strapping him to a new table- one slanted, and covered by a thin pad more suited to soaking up blood than to provide any pretense of comfort. 

“Two months in isolation before Euclidi showed up to remove your mutations,” the woman murmured thoughtfully, the soft clatter and scape of a chair across the floor indicating her location before Greyson’s gown was being pushed aside to expose his chest, and plastic fingers were probing the starburst of a scar. “And in all that time they never thought to do anything with you. I’m sure with your past, Corvid- you know what that can do to a person’s head.”

There was a pinprick in Greyson’s chest- a thin wire, half as thick as any of the needles, and barbed so that when the woman gave it an experimental tug, it caught and stayed under the skin. Another was placed on the other side of his heart, and then, with careful precision, two more at each of his temples. “Did it feel good when they were gone?” She asked softly, plucking up one of the wires to run her fingers down to where it fell over the edge of the table. “Did it feel like you were being cleansed?”

“I-I’m not telling you anything. I know better than to give ‘harmless’ information. I don’t know what you’ll do with it...” he squirmed against the table propping him up, until the gown was pulled aside and the wires were placed.

Oh. He was clever enough to guess what wires in his skin were for- especially where they were placed. They weren’t thick enough to hurt- that wasn’t the point. 

The point was that metal was a very good conductor.

“I-It... it felt like _ stars _ ... his powers, they’re... incredible.” He murmured. “But-But that’s not any of your business.” He writhed again, trying to knock the wires out, but they were made to withstand that. He wasn’t going to get them out, no matter how hard he tried.

“They are, aren’t they,” she mused, “Euclidi is currently the only known person in the world with the ability to do anything near what you and I have spent our lives studying. And I’ll bet you he doesn’t even know half of what he’s doing. I’ve asked to have him in several times but Luther can be so  _ possessive. _ It’s a pity.”

She flipped the switches without warning while she was talking, and there was little to no warm-up time before the electricity was sent through his body. It was only several seconds at first, a preliminary insurance on her part before she switched it off with a flat hum and yanked one of the wires out against it’s barb with a hard jerk to reposition it elsewhere.

Sure, he’d been zapped before, but at extreme levels for short amounts of time. He’d never had time to think about the pain while it was happening, only after.

He didn’t know if this was worse.

And this wasn’t even that strong yet- he’d guess maybe 250 to 300 watts. Only barely strong enough to hurt- nowhere near the strength of a taser, even. It wasn’t anything. But he knew that when something started off easy, it was because they were trying to take it slow.

It’d get much worse.

“Careful. Fry my brain and you’ll never get the codes.”

“Ampere and voltage are two different things, dear. A controlled circuit won’t do permanent damage unless I mean for it to. Given your continuing refusal to cooperate, however, it might come close,” she hummed, scribbling something down. 

“Let’s begin.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖

Charlie had driven all over New York, continuing late into the night, when the only place she could get coffee was McDonalds scattered around. She sipped it slowly, burning her tongue, as she pulled into the tiny town of Cedars, New York. It was nearly 5 hours away from the city. She was tired, and tired eyes missed details. Still, she climbed out of her car.

The little town, if it could be called that, was right next to a lake- she could hear the slight wind rippling the water. She couldn’t see how anything or anyone could be hidden here, but she had no clue what could be hidden under that water, or under her feet. 

It was pretty, she had to admit. Little cottages by the lakeside. It looked like the perfect place to build a summer home. But that wasn’t what she was here for. 

It’d take too long to search every house, especially if there were hidden garages and such, so she kept an eye out for certain things. An NHU vehicle, car or boat, or maybe an employee. She was a doctor, not a detective, and it was hard to rule something out if you didn’t know what you were looking for.

The hero’s own search, confined as it had to be to the urbanized area of the city, nevertheless took him in a semi-organized zigzag patrol across the boroughs he’d come to know from the air like the back of his hand. The streets and buildings stretched beneath him in spider web grids, though the rush of his own little whirlwind and the cold across his face did nothing to ease the sickened anxiety gnawing at his gut. 

Blue had offered to stay an extended period of time in house after the past week’s events, and while Euclidi could disguise several of the visits as regular duty- a street patrol, a lunch break, a clinic visit, he still had to juggle them around his dispatch and the communication he held with his contacts. At least he was able to rule several out for good, purely based on size or experience in that locale. 

It was nighttime, the brilliant glow of the city that never slept reflecting in windows and across the asphalt of the avenues, before his secondary cellphone rang. He picked it up without even checking the contact, because either way he knew he’d want to hear from one of the few people it could be.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Rita H. Fennel, D.O.” The voice on the other end was young, feminine, and succinct, with an air of brusque warmth that radiated out even over the slight breeze blowing in his ears as he landed on top of a building. “Born in Philadelphia, graduated 2009. She went through medical school under a different name, applied to dozens of hospitals for fellowship after her residency and was rejected at all but one here in the city due to a record of unorthodox practices. She disappeared one month later, shortly before her thirty-second birthday. There are no further records of her in my databases, or in my contact’s areas of access.”

“And Cedars?” Marion could feel his grip tightening on the phone, something flipping inside him at the journalist’s description; his contact rarely used descriptors without a list to back them up.

“No luck for now, Mari,” the woman said gently. “If it is indeed a government run facility as you suspected and not an independent agency the search might take longer yet. Have you been watching the nurse?”

“She’s checking out the places I can’t reach,” Marion reported, and then added, because he could practically hear the eyebrow arching through the phone, “She worked with Greyson, and she wants to help. If she wanted to turn me in by now she could have.”

“I seem vaguely to recall a conversation we had years ago on the greater benefits of staying sober when entrusting one’s follies to an unknown agent.”

“I wasn’t… that drunk,” Marion replied weakly.

“Mm. The judgement is yours. I’ll call you back; stop leaving so many messages, please. And darling? I’m sure your lover prefers to be rescued by someone who can see two feet in front of his face. Get some sleep at some point within the next sixty-eight hours.”

Marion let out a slight huff as the line went dead, then punched in Charlie’s number, pacing back along the building top as it began to ring.

If anyone saw her walking down the road, alone, at 2 in the morning, she might have gotten the cops called on her, especially in a small community like this where she had to assume everyone knew everyone else. It was a risk she’d have to take.

Charlie avoided shining her flashlight towards any windows and kept her eyes towards garages and dirt paths. A few of the houses had left their garages open, so she could eliminate those. But she knew the kind of tech the NHU had. And the more she thought of ways they could hide themselves, the more hopeless she felt.

She was shining her phone’s flashlight in the water, some attempt to see down into it. No such luck- even in daylight, the water was mostly dark blue and opaque five feet down. She answered. 

“Can I come back now? This place is adorably innocent, which might be the point, but I don’t think he’s here.”

“It’s too much ground for one person to cover anyway. If you don’t see anything sticking out, we’ll put it on a second priority list. I got an update.”

Marion’s voice cleared up as he entered a windless area, “The Doctor’s first name is Rita. She was working through her preliminary residency after getting her medical degree. What you said-” he pulled in a deep breath; released it- “About the suicide watch on your patients. It checks out. Apparently she was turned away from practicing at several hospitals for ‘unorthodox’ measures. She’s off public radar now. That paper on her internship at Cedars was probably her first year there.”

She turned back off the dock, heading back for her car. “Off public radar doesn’t mean off radar completely. That’s good, that’s really good. I might be able to find something in the info department, but if she’s really that important, I doubt even most of the info department has anything on her. I’ll go into work the day after tomorrow and see if I can get anything.”

She climbed into the driver’s seat of her car, her now-lukewarm coffee in the cup holder. “You should go home too, get some sleep. Can’t do anyone any good if you’re collapsing from exhaustion.”

“....” Marion laughed quietly, “I- told them I’d take the night watch, but I’ll..take that to heart soon as my shift’s over. This isn’t the worst night I’ve had, as far as sleep deprivation goes, believe it or not. You too, okay? Drive safely. I’ll have the files I took in place again by the time you’re back.”

He hung up and took a deep breath, then took a running jump to hop off the building roof and into the rush of air that supported his weight, taking off further into Manhattan.

“‘M okay. Also not the worst night I’ve had. Stay safe out there, okay? Bye.” She began the long drive back to New York City. And she couldn’t help thinking, while she drove, that she’d  _ just  _ missed him, that he was right there, that they’d find him too late or not at all.

She turned on a podcast instead and kept driving through the dark, as the sky began to lighten.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	54. Cecil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a while, hasn’t it? I meant to get a chapter out for Christmas, but I was working on a little oneshot for Blue. 
> 
> Go read my other work, When The Snow Begins to Fall, for our Christmas boys!
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

The following days passed in a blur. Marion could only search any one area so thoroughly before he risked casting suspicion onto himself, and so it became a dangerous game of testing waters and tempting fate; scouting out each location in the ever shortening list of possibilities. The hospital he’d visited before rode to the top of his list, but even with several searches (Charlie could access places he couldn’t) turned out nothing substantial. 

The files from the information department were an endless loop of referrals and timestamps, minutes and reference numbers. 

And the anxiety grew. Slowly, surely, to a burning panic that Marion could barely ignore. It was wrong, it was all desperately wrong and though he hadn't seen the evidence of what had happened to Greyson quite yet, he could no longer brush aside the discordant account of Luther's words. And all he could do to surmount the fear, working endlessly through the rote motions of his job and devoting himself to the hunt, was hope that wherever Greyson was, he was holding out. 

The second Charlie got back and went back to work, she felt oddly... idle. She’d never felt this way before- she was always busy saving lives, she always had felt like she was doing something good, but now there was nothing she  _ could  _ do, and she felt horrible.

So she occupied herself however she could. She picked up extra shifts, but also started babysitting her niece more. And all the while, images of the patients they’d gotten from Cedars ran through her head, and worst-case-scenario type events. What’d happened to those patients to make them that way.

And even so, she was nowhere near close. The ideas that popped into her head were that of a civilian nurse. Not someone who’d done this before, and knew the efficient ways to get something out of someone.

There was a cafe a block or two from the info department’s building- outside the gates banning public access, nestled under a bridge with the muffled clattering roar of a train passing by overhead every fifteen minutes. Marion had come here for lunch, once or twice.

It was different at night, with the scant late hours patronage and blinking neon signs. Different, not wearing his full hero’s uniform, or sitting next to a coworker. Different, waiting for Charlie to arrive with the gnawing sting of news at the back of his throat and a drink he barely remembered ordering clenched almost too tightly in one hand.

He’d swung by the apartment again before asking to meet her there. He was tired of double checking his work clothing for trackers, and he’d decided to change. 

Marion had stood in the middle of the darkened living room, holding a Columbia University hoodie in both hands, lost in thought until he was in danger of being late. He’d rushed out the front door, down the elevator, and into the humid city heat of the streets below, yanking on the beanie (which did a better job disguising him than the entirety of his outfit) and broken into a jog, as though he could outrun the lingering scent of pancakes that had settled into his nose. 

And now he sat. Jouncing his leg under the table to burn off some of the nervous energy as he watched the sidewalk through the polished glass windows at the front of the shop.

Charlie was a little late- she’d gotten stopped by a neighbor as she was leaving. The old man had always been nosy, but now she refused to fold. He had no reason to know where she was going so late. She had a feeling he wouldn’t like the answer- he’d always had a dislike for supers, hero or villain or somewhere in between.

She’d changed from her scrubs after her shift to something dark- a pair of black jeans and a navy blue hoodie. What she was doing felt... wrong. Even though she was absolute and sure what she was doing was the right thing, she was anxious about it. About getting caught, maybe.

Seeing Marion in everyday clothes still unnerved her. He hardly looked like a beacon of safety like this. Hardly looked like he could’ve made the big hole in the facility they were still trying to patch up.

She slid into the seat across from him fast enough to make it tilt slightly.

“Have you found anything? A location?”

“Possibly.” Marion’s eyes held thunder as he watched her settle down; he let go of his drink and folded his hands on the table, tension thrumming through each knuckle and reddened tendon.

“I talked to my contact again,” he said quietly, “And she found some more information regarding Cecil- Cecil Guinne.”

The man shifted back in his seat, watching a few patrons leave the shop from across the room before continuing. “Do you know the law of The Nemesis Principle?”

“I’ve heard of it, but enlighten me.” She shifted to hang her bag on the back of her chair. “You were assigned to Greyson, right? Because of this principle?”

She hadn’t found much, but given a new name, maybe she’d be able to find more. She could’ve sworn she’d seen the name Cecil Guinne somewhere in the info department, but she’d have to look again- which meant a higher chance of getting caught.

He nodded, shifting his attention to the tv stood in a corner where some late night news blared.   
  
“A couple decades ago, there was a series of attacks over in L.A by an explosive super named Flagro. You’ve probably heard of that too; it was pretty huge. He killed over seven hundred civilians and officers and put others in hostage situations. It didn’t stop until the CIA interposed and scouted down someone with powers that complemented his and sent her to take him down.

“After that was when the US got really serious about instituting more measures for the growing number of… mutants. They started writing up policies to define and protect our rights, and measures that would help them keep track of who was out there and what they could do- which is why it’s technically illegal to be an undocumented super. It’s also when the NHU was established. 

“In its early years they tried a more unified structure, like a militia group. But it proved too difficult to organize and train superhumans with such a wide array of abilities and backgrounds, so instead they switched to a more independent program, with different branches operating in different territories, each with a primary hero and their sidekicks and medics as a support team. That way they could leave each branch’s president free to decide how they operate based on their local situation. They also continued to use the same strategy they had in the battle against Flagro- when a villain became big on their radar- say, overtly aggressive or with a quickly rising kill count- they’d scout out a super with abilities that could preferably work around the villain’s at best, or simply overpower them. They named this the Nemesis Principle.”

Marion paused to let the history lesson settle in. His eyes were dark as he gave his hot chocolate a stir or two to release curlicues of steam that wafted up into nothingness.

“I was scouted after I turned legal age because they couldn’t seem to find anyone else who could trick or efficiently match Corvid’s powers- no one who was willing or unoccupied, that is. I think the closest water-based super is stationed in Miami to help out during hurricane season. I was trained more to take general care of the city though, with emphasis on fighting Corvid. What I  _ didn’t _ know… what no one knew, was that apparently, Luther had assigned someone else to watch him. Someone who wasn’t even a member of the NHU.”

“Who I’m assuming is this Cecil guy. That makes no sense, though- another nemesis? He’s only ever fought you- at least, that’s what’s publicized. You, and the surrounding supers. If there was another hero, I’m sure I’d know about it. Everyone would.” 

“So is he a-a spy? That’s the only thing I can imagine, if his role wasn’t publicized like yours was. I can’t imagine Corvid was ignorant enough to let a spy through, though, or give his guards enough access to any of his stuff for a spy to actually be useful.” 

She eyed his hot chocolate. She wanted to get up and grab some for herself, but this was more important than tea.

“A spy is closest, but intel wasn’t even the primary goal. He was contracted solely to focus on sabotaging Corvid, to stay under the radar whereas I was fighting publicly and protecting New York at the same time. Usually even outside agents are supposed to have some NHU personnel over them; Cecil was totally free. We have it in writing that he was allowed to use any means he deemed necessary to infiltrate, track or capture Corvid.”

He stopped, pushing the drink and the unwrapped straw across the table to her. “There’s mint in that. I remember where I saw him before now. He’s been in my nightmares. He was the teacher on the field trip to the plant, Charlie.”

“He worked at the school for a long time, before apparently retiring and then- he dropped off the grid entirely. Just like Fennel. Until a few weeks before Corvid’s attack on the chemical plant. He showed up suddenly to substitute for someone.”

Marion’s voice was growing quieter with each word, but it wasn’t fear of being overheard more than a rigid hardness. “Typically the plant was considered too dangerous for non-workers to be allowed in. But they got special permission to go on a day operations would be stopped in observance of the mayor’s death.”

Charlie took a sip from it after a moment. What she really needed was alcohol. “So he allowed the deaths of- what was it, 28 children? Why? Corvid was already hated- you were already after him. There was no need to make him seem worse than he already was.”

She leaned her elbow on the table, her forehead on her hand. “If he didn’t work for the NHU, then he must’ve worked for someone, right? Someone who wouldn’t get caught funding this- the NHU’s spendings are public record. A private institution, probably working with them...?”

The puzzles pieces all fell into place. “Cedars isn’t NHU. It can’t be. So the files wouldn’t be in NHU’s records.”

“I don’t know why he brought the class into it,” Marion replied flatly. “I don’t know why he couldn’t have gotten in with whatever underground influence they already seemed to have. I don’t know how or if they even knew Corvid was going to attack or if it was just a guise for investigation but he was hiding behind kids. He was hiding fucking behind  _ children _ so I don’t care. Luther should have figured out  _ who the hell he was hiring _ before he-”

He broke off again, and pulled in a slightly shaky breath. The napkin in his other hand, when he quickly let it go, was reduced to a tiny pile of brown dust. 

“...my contact says there’s an internal database for all the government run state programs in the city hall that one of her agents has access to. It’s too high security to allow any outside contact but they said they’d disable the security enough to let me in for a while. I’m going there tonight.”

She was smart enough to know not to ask to go with him. He was trained. He was a professional. But still, she wanted to help. “Be careful. We can focus on uncovering the back rooms of the NHU later- just get the location and get out of there. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

She was unsettled that Marion’s anger caused him to lose control like that, even a little bit. She wondered what it would take to make him  _ really  _ lose it.

Marion gave a little hum; he’d gone back to clasping his hands together, deliberation to the words, “That’s the main goal. If you can, I’d like you to be on standby so I have another person to potentially pass info along to. My contact has told me that she’s willing to meet up with you if necessary afterwards but- I still don’t know exactly what I’m up against, which is why I’m going to warn you now.”

He paused; looked her in the eyes, “From this point onward, you need to prioritize your safety. These people have demonstrated a willingness to take extreme measures to get what they want, including civilian homicide. That means if things start getting dicey, I want you to be ready to turn around and leave- no questions, no heroics, no waiting to see what happens. If I find something that puts this over that threshold, I’m going to cut contact with you because when the wrong people find you’ve got a connection to all this, it might not be just you they target.”

“Of course- of course I’ll be there.” She’d need a coffee to keep herself awake- this was getting to be too many late nights, but she couldn’t force herself to sleep if her mind wouldn’t let her.

“I’ll leave if I have to- really leave. I’ve got a niece to protect. But if I do, you have to promise me you’ll keep him safe. And you’ll get back to me if you can- if Greyson dies and you’re involved in it, I doubt it’ll be on the news.”

“You still haven’t told me the name of this contact. If I’m going to be meeting up with her, I’ll need to know what to look for.”

The hero nodded, taking a second to shift around and pull a phone out of his pocket- a small, older fashioned one with a privacy shield over the slim face. “Call her Lottë. Set your own password on this one- it’s got her information, and mine. She’ll call you if plans change.”

He shifted, and then added, in a softer tone, “Charlie, whether Greyson makes it out of this or not, you’ll be the first person I’ll tell. And- and I’m going to tell him about you too. I don’t know if he understands yet that there are people who care for him as more than a pawn or a symbol.”

She took it and slipped it into her bag. She’d have to be careful with it- there’d be trouble if it were lost. “Lottë... alright then.”

She shifted in her chair, raising the cup of hot chocolate to her lips. “Poor boy. As much as he doesn’t deserve the life he’s had, I know you’ll help him see it in a better light.” He was a  _ hero  _ after all. That was his job. But this was different, somehow. She could tell he felt different about Greyson. 

Marion let a smile brush his lips up; the softly worn tilt of a grief mellowed warrior backed against the tense line wrapping broad shoulders as he stood, "I'll get him out, Charlie. Whatever this is."

And then, as he checked the time and slipped his bag over his shoulder to head for the door, "By the way- if you ask they'll make that a mocha for free."

She glanced at the cup. Charlie didn’t turn to watch him go. “Text me the address. I’ll be right behind you.” She stood and went to the counter. She asked for two shots of espresso with it. It was going to be a long night. It already was.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	55. I Don’t Need You Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is... certainly something. Hope you all are ready for the feels.
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Somewhere, in the distance, a doorway slammed.

It jolted Marion out of the half-dead stupor.

His torso jerked, curling in on itself, and he retched, fingers sliding loosely along the same grimy stained concrete.

His breath was still out of his control; it was its own mind and it spasmed in cavernous punches that slammed against bruised ribs while sob after bile-scalded sob left his tender throat. His arm had been set back into its socket, ugly blooms of crimson, columbine and marigold bruising the torn ligament.

His body had stopped fighting at some point, the flinching and kicking growing weaker as he became too jaded to care for anything but immediate safety. He’d blacked out with the medical bitterness of iodine on his lips, sagging into the impersonal cloth of the gloved hand, carded through his hair and the fuzzy, crooning voice. He’d woken up alone, again.

_ And his vision was clear. _

It was the first tell. His bare back pressed against the floor, he blinked, blinked again to clear the tears away, and stared up at the ceiling. It was slanted. There were pipes running bare along the axis. He hadn’t been able to notice that before.

His trembling hand twitched; it curled into a fist, tentatively at first and then with tightness as his breath exploded to a burst of gasping sobs again, helpless relief at the mere ability to move of his own volition.

Marion rolled, limbs shuddering as he pulled himself to his knees. His arms wouldn’t support his weight at first, he tried once, twice, forehead pressed to the floor each time as he failed, caught his breath, tried again, and knelt up. 

And stayed up. Groaning breathlessly. Feeling the tug and incongruent misalignment of his own tattered body without really feeling it at all, because a new kind of haze had settled over, and it tugged him along to elect his movements with a purpose and direction he had before only been able to sense in snatches and wisps.

A hand, his hand, was settled on the floor, palm pressed flat. The ground- real, solid, present, and he pressed his other hand next to it, and a short, hoarse, bitter laugh escaped as he reveled in the sensation.

Corvid wasn’t anywhere to be seen. But he wasn’t alway visible- he could’ve been anywhere. 

But he wasn’t. He was asleep, leaning back in his office chair in his lab. He hadn’t re-administered the power-muting drug he’d had Marion on 24/7, not after he’d passed out. He’d meant to keep an eye on his cameras, just so he could see when Marion woke up again. But obviously, he couldn’t do that when he was unconscious. 

That was his first mistake. The second was not stationing guards outside Marion’s cell. The third was not cuffing or tying or otherwise restraining him. 

He’d made a lot of mistakes that day, for someone who’d seemed the perfect mastermind.

Marion would have liked to stay there for a while longer- hidden away, in that fragile little soap-bubble of amazement, but his thoughts disintegrated to sharp attentiveness as a faint noise of footsteps reminded him of his dire strait. 

He knew he was alone- the lack of heat or human voice reassured him of that. He was wounded beyond what he’d ever been before, exhausted, his bones aching and the wall of instinctual fear pushing to reclaim the forefront of his mind. Deep in the center of his enemy’s home, unable to know how long he’d been in stasis. 

The hero’s muscles, bare in the faint light seeping from the doorway flexed- shifted, and his visor began to brighten, and his powers flared, and the floor began to shudder. 

It was all concrete, rebar, and piping. His eyes beneath the light shield pulsated their opalescent shade as he reached, sensations curling downward and with a groaning, shrieking screech, the metal in the walls began to tear away. It wavered in his grip like tentacles, pulled through the solid stone that cracked like brittle paper. The iron and steel hovered, held in his mind with the whirlwind that started around his body, and with short bursts of breath, he turned for the door.

He’d been tired the last time he attacked, too. Bone-dead from trying to sustain the weak flicker of life as it faded from a boy in his arms. But that hadn't been what made him sloppy. It had been the terror, and the anger blinding him, that had gotten him captured before.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The hallways were dim when he emerged. The building was still shaking with the aftershocks of the makeshift weapon he’d yanked from the structure, and said metal hovered about his form in a snaked tangle of fluidly shifting steel, glinting in the blue light of his form. He thought he could hear shouting, somewhere in the distance. He pressed forwards, eyes searching the dark. 

Searching for Corvid. 

Corvid’s first thought when he was knocked out of the chair was the mask. Still there, still on his face. Next was the cameras. His head jerked towards the screen. Eight out of nine blinked  _ DISCONNECTED _ in bright, red letters. The ninth was down the hall, far down the hall, from Euclidi’s cell, and he could see Marion. 

However dirty or bloody or wounded, the sight struck cold fear through him, twisted his heart like a piece of fabric. 

_ He’s weak _ , Corvid told himself.  _ He’s been tortured for two weeks straight. I’ve fought him stronger. I can do this. _

His boots clicked as he rushed down the hall. Every guard he passed, he ordered to evacuate until further notice. He was responsible for a lot of deaths, but not these ones. 

A right, a left, another right. He should be just here. 

If the movement alerted government forces, he’d have to transfer all his stuff. Where, he didn’t know yet, but he’d figure it out. He always did. Marion was the tricky part. 

“EUCLIDI!” He cried.

Marion’s figure had stopped at a juncture in the hallway- a three-way split, at a standstill as he listened to the din of voices and shouting. 

The call jerked his head towards Corvid, freezing as he caught sight of the other super at the end of the hallway. His body followed suit until he was facing him, head cocked, and metal poised to hedge around his figure. Behind him, pounding footsteps and a slamming door sounded from someone’s retreat.

He was silent, staring at the other man. The bulb in the hallway behind him was sputtering, dangling from a frayed wire protruding from the cracked wall. He shifted slightly; it blinked, and went out.

The hero lurched a step, stumbling forwards another pace or two. And then he vaulted forwards, and the walls began to scream again with the horrible rending as the metal from the floor, from one end of the hallway to the next, began to curl upwards out of the ground, and the ground started to splinter.

Shit. They’d very, very rarely fought in confined spaces- spaces where Corvid couldn’t run or dodge or otherwise avoid an entire building’s worth of metal structuring being hurled at him with all the fury of a man tortured at his hands for two weeks. The most he could do was sprint back the way he came and duck around the corner. 

If Euclidi really wanted to, or wasn’t careful, he’d clip the corner, and that’d be it. Corvid would’ve been utterly obliterated. 

His heart pounded blood through his ears loud enough to be heard over screeching metal. Marion was going to tear the building apart, collapse it on top of both of them if he wasn’t careful. And Corvid had a feeling Euclidi was anything but careful at the moment. 

The whistling note of metal being hurled followed the villain back, and a second after he’d rounded the corner, a few long strands of rebar buried themselves into the wall behind where he’d been standing, the blunt points creating spiderwebs of cracks where they’d lodged several inches deep into the concrete. 

_ “Corvid,” _ Euclidi said, and it was carried and amplified by the powers prickling the aura around him- wavering, scratchy and determined. 

And then the walls buckled and began to heave. The lights up and down the hallway blinked out permanently as plaster and stone began to rain down, sliding down the walls, and then with a crushing, destructive roar, part of the hallway and floor exploded away into the cavernous space beyond, and the floor buckled under the weight, and the hero fell, a few dozens of feet into the adjacent room.

Dust-clouds hung from the destroyed rubble. Faintly, Marion registered that it was a warehouse. Propane and oxygen tanks, stacked crates lining certain portions of the wall, a few unmarked transport vans. Concrete columns holding up the place.    
  
And a window, far on the other side of the room, holding the first glimpse of sky he’d seen in oh, so long.

He knew Corvid was in the room with him; he’d pulled down too much of the wall to not have caught the villain in his radius, and he knew that if he’d been able to slide unharmed down the wave of rubble, then so had his nemesis. They were trapped in the room, with each other. The metal slithered along the ground at his feet as he stumbled again, closing his eyes to instead try and sense the heat. 

Corvid hadn’t managed an untouched landing, but instead skidded to the floor of the warehouse, smart enough to activate his invisibility before he hit the ground. 

They’d landed in a very dangerous room, and put Greyson at a severe disadvantage. The dust hadn’t settled yet, but once it managed to, at least a bit, his footsteps would be visible. Propane could be useful (especially to someone with fire powers. Or a box of matches.) But he’d have to be careful with it. He might just blow up the whole room. 

He took a tentative step. Another. He’d mastered walking silently years ago- it was the heat he was worried about. His breath hurt in his chest- he didn’t dare exhale. 

At least, for a precious ~10 seconds, he had the element of surprise. 

In his hands, he created a fireball, as dense and strong as he could possibly make it before Marion noticed, and launched it as hard as he could. He wouldn’t even need to necessarily hit him- missing would blow up enough propane to hit him. 

It was a shame, really. He’d only had his little hero for two weeks- he could’ve done so much more with him.

Marion dodged.

Spun to the side, the familiar whoosh or crackling air spinning past in a blur as the fire brightened. His wind wasn’t as strong as it would have been in open air; it barely glanced the fireball off to the side, where it careened wildly into a few lone oxygen tanks. A hiss and a spire of melting, whitish pure heat flared as the fire ate the rich fuel hungrily and died out, but Marion was already moving again. 

It was the pound of footsteps against the floor; he was trying to push Corvid further into the open space, and defending his left side without lunging directly for the man like usual. The pipes he’d frozen into the ground, blocking off a tiny portion of the room where one of the docks would have afforded a possible way out. The rebar was curling through the dust, writhing, seeking blindly, and cyan pulsated around his silhouette.

It was methodical, to trained eyes. He was putting himself between Corvid and the tanks of loaded ammunition otherwise easily available to him. 

Alright then. What were his options? The exit was blocked, but any way was a way out if you tried hard enough. That wasn’t his priority. His priority was the fuel, which was getting harder to access the farther Euclidi pushed him away from it. 

He could melt the stone under his feet, but that took effort and time he didn’t have. He could launch all the fireballs he wanted towards the tanks, but it’d take a lucky shot to hit one and blow them up enough to cause real damage. And he didn’t want to hurt Marion, if he could help it.

“Bet the cops are here already. I can hear sirens outside.” He said calmly. He didn’t always need a physical weapon. “Cops, and reporters. Do you really want them to see you like this?” He flickered back into view, circling the room. “You’re a complete disaster. And I’ve never seen you this angry. Angry people do things they regret. I’d imagine you’d regret the public light you’d be painted in if you killed me on live TV.”

Sound was amplified in the spacious atmosphere, his voice echoed and died for a ticking moment of silence. Euclidi stepped over a few blocks of fragmented asphalt, blue reflecting off the dust around him, in his glowing visor, stretched up along the metal cords lashed around his good arm. “I don’t need to kill you,” he said, line of sight locked onto Corvid. 

The borrowed sweatpants were already in tatters- scraps of cloth hanging loose around his ankles. His chest was gleaming with sweat and rivulets of red from the wounds reopening under the movement. Euclidi was not fresh; he was limping, his whole form marred and appearing just slightly misshapen- broken, and he barely seemed to notice it under the tight set of purpose to his shoulders. 

Marion only took two long strands of supple cable with him, coiled up around his arms as he broke into a sprint towards Corvid. The rest of the rebar had wound itself the wide expanse between two of the support pillars, wrapping around and pulling tight, like a python chokes its prey.

He disappeared again. It wasn’t hard to dodge someone running on fury and adrenaline instead of logic. And besides.

He’d left a straight shot to the fuel tanks.

Corvid darted around the pillars, his boots nearly silent on the cement. Hopefully, it would take a moment for Marion to locate him again. 

But that didn’t matter. He had two hands on massive propane tanks against the wall. If he could heat the room at the right pace, he’d melt all the metal at the same time and cause a very, very big explosion.

He didn’t need to hide from Marion anymore.

“Now let’s just hold on a second. We can talk like civilized people, can’t we? Look around for just a moment. I know for a fact who would survive if I decided your escape isn’t worth salvaging my base.”

He'd narrowly missed snagging Corvid with the rebar, the metal sparking faintly as it skidded to a rest across the concrete and he skidded around to stand defensively, watching the villain with an intent stillness.

"Enough, Corvid. Enough with the games," he said, voice shaking with weariness. And then, lower, "Don't face me and stand tall when you know what you've done."

“I think I’ll face you however I like. You’re tired, Euclidi. You’re hurt. And I’ve already beaten you once, when you were in better shape. Do you really think you’ll fare better now?” 

He took his hands off the tanks, leaning up against them. “If I can’t keep you, I’m going to kill you, I hope you realize that. Let’s make this easy and keep you alive, alright?”

Marion couldn’t suppress the shudder in his frame. It sounded like the villain was ordering him to come back and vividly, some subconsciousness in his psyche could recall the same lilting tone used to pry his mind open and flood his senses. He could recall the helplessness of kneeling while his autonomy was chipped away in the obliteration of fear.

He held his hands out. The injured arm was tremoring badly. His hands clenched, and like he were a puppeteer, the rebar did too. The supports gave, splinters snaking up and down the concrete. Just a little, just a threat. 

“Surrender,” Marion pled. “Burn yourself out so I can take you. Corvid, I won’t let you leave here free. Let me do it peacefully.”

“It seems we are at an impasse then, hm? Neither wants to let the other leave free. The question is... if I blow up the tanks, and you collapse the ceiling, will either of us survive?”

“I am not a peaceful man,  _ mon cheri _ . I’m sure you’ve put that together by now. I don’t go  _ anywhere _ peacefully, and I certainly don’t surrender to heroes  _ peacefully _ .”

Two could play at this game. The white paint on the outside of the tank burned off, leaving the room smelling burnt. With a little more effort, he’d burn the metal, too.

The finality of it settled into his veins like ice. Corvid hadn’t listened any other time; he had no reason to now, and his words were a venomous lure. 

Talking was dangerous.

Marion’s bare foot was sliding into a fighting stance- his body drilled into unthinkingly seeking his center of gravity. His eyes were searching the room, stocking his resources and obstacles. 

His sightline settled back onto Corvid. “I’ll meet you in the middle, then.”

In the same motion he launched himself forwards, he let the rebar slide. A few of the thick cords curled around his arm, and in a split second he’d sent his power through them, and one of the pillars cracked- not from the rebar, but on its own.

The fallout wouldn’t be directly overhead-it wasn’t the one closest to Corvid, but the flying debris would give him no choice but to defend himself, and Marion was already preparing for it, one of the transport vans starting to warp and twist as pieces of it were torn away.

He sighed, and the metal melted behind him. The second propane started spilling out, it exploded. Corvid watched him nonchalantly as he was engulfed in flames. 

As it turned out, collapsing rubble wasn’t much of an issue when he was blowing shit up. 

The flames went up, and up, and up. 10 feet, then 20, then 25. If all attention wasn’t on his base before, it was now. 

His explosion didn’t block all the rubble from hitting him, though, and when the flames cleared, even though he was invisible, his footprints were very visible in the ash.

The radius blast was almost devastating. 

Marion had felt the shockwave before he could see it. The severed door to the van shielded his body for the split second before the brunt of heat created an updraft, and he rode it with a blast of his own air to lift, high, higher- two smaller propane tanks were held in the clutches of his rebar, and as the cracking ceiling met the waves of flame, they exploded directly against the concrete, making a crater in the sagging roof.

He’d burst through it, and for a second, he glimpsed the outside world. It was the Venetian blue of dusk, the golden glitter of harbor lights, and the rush of cool air against his blistering skin. And the air was what he was after. 

He landed in the center of a whirlwind. The air swirled about him, dispersed the leftover flames, blazed his bright light and faded to dust devils as he chased where the footprints had gone before he’d blown them away. The middle pillar of the room was starting to crack.

Well, that hadn’t gone at all like he’d expected. He’d wasted his most valuable advantage and Marion had dodged just fine. 

He couldn’t see a way to win this fight, but he could see a way up to the second floor.

The floor with his lab on it.

Just the hard drives, he decided. He could only grab the hard drives- he’d burn the rest of it. 

Rubble crumbled under his invisible feet as he fumbled his way up, probably alerting Euclidi to his location. He’d have to be fast. 

His boots weren’t silent as he sprinted down the hall. Hopefully, Euclidi would get lost before he could find the lab.

A nearby crash indicated the superhuman wasn’t far behind.

Up on the second floor, what light there was glowed red in the faint flashing pulse of the alarm system, the halls were abandoned and silent save for footsteps, the creaking of the strained infrastructure and the sprinkler system, which had unhelpfully triggered in the aftermath of the wreckage.

Marion continued to search, but his eyes were growing accustomed to the hazy distortion of dust, light and heat, and he’d followed at a distance.

His feet were bare; he’d only been careful to keep his footing secure, and little pools of blood left a faint footprint at each step. Whatever strength he was running on was concentrated in his head, he couldn’t feel his extremities anymore. 

As he ran, he pushed open a door, then another one. Euclidi wouldn’t be able to tell if he slipped through one. 

When he neared the lab, he pushed open its door, then a door across from it- barracks, it seemed. Or a guard break room. It didn’t matter. He’d stopped just outside both of them and froze. Marion would have to make a very quick decision on which room he’d gone into.

Corvid held his breath, his lungs filling with CO2. He didn’t dare exhale. His whole body was pressed against the wall, still as a portrait of a butterfly. Unmoving, though it seemed he should be doing anything but.

There was only so low he could make his temperature go down, though. He was too close to the doors, but it was too late now.

In the end, it was a mixture of circumstance and observation. The floor was tilted dangerously to the side from the explosions, there were hallways blocked completely with rubble. The sprinkler system was mixing with the dust to make a thin layer of sludge that turned the corridors slippery. 

Marion’s mind was hazy on the hallways, but his body remembered some things, and he’d jerked away from the door of the rooms he’d been led to when his captor wanted to have some fun. 

He knew where Corvid was headed. There was only one thing he would have risked his escape for.    
Marion had grabbed onto the doorjamb of the first opening he reached at the end of the hallway, and seen a plain room with a few lockers, a table, a coffee machine, he’d looked back and-

Out of his peripheral. A smudged handprint of muddy dust on the wall, the way the water droplets plinked off of something that wasn’t there, glinting in the flash of red light. 

His hand had almost brushed the other. He stumbled backwards, a noise escaping. The walls screamed and, in a split second, there was iron slithering out of the walls, wrapping itself around the villain’s middle. Like cold snakes, twisting up and trying to lash him into place.

Corvid swore breathily. He jerked his hands up before they were entwined with metal, too. 

The metal tore at his clothes and rose up over his abdomen, made an X over his chest, and fastened over his shoulders. It wasn’t going to be this easy, though.

Blowing up the propane tanks had been one thing- this, this was a different story. He’d only needed enough energy to melt through the metal and blow the tank- it didn’t cost him anything to direct the heat. This time, he didn’t have any fuel but himself. 

So as the metal turned red hot and melted, a last ditch attempt at escape, it drew from him, it drained from him. Melting metal was no easy feat.

He couldn’t melt it all at once, either. As soon as he’d gotten his chest free, his abdomen was curled in veins, and so on. Melting it was only making it easier for Euclidi to manipulate. 

He blasted. He burst, with everything he had, and tried to destroy the metal or the walls or the lab or Marion or  _ something _ . Something that would save him.

Red, it was all red. The heat, blood, the lights, the molten steel and the hiss of sweat evaporating from his own skin, Marion had barely had time to fall back, staggering into the lab, before the walls themselves curled, shrivelled, charred away. Red, except for the villain himself, heated to that blinding whitish blue of pure, unfiltered heat. It was for a second, Euclidi almost thought, like staring into a supernova must be like. The very stone beneath Corvid’s feet was starting to glow, and it wasn’t even the focal point of his flame. 

Nevertheless, he held on. Blackness was swimming at the edges of his vision, and he’d found that he was twisting the walls down, twisting in the ceiling- tearing out chunks to place between himself and the searing hellfire. Pulling out new material to use because Corvid had  _ burned away _ some of the steel. Something exploded somewhere and shards of stone peppered his arms and face, making little, jagged lacerations.

A tabletop crashed near the door, its lab setup scattering across the floor in a cascade of glittering glass shards, and he ducked behind it, unable to cry out from the dryness in his throat as the metal heated and seared into his bleeding back. 

And he held on. Closed his eyes and concentrated on the  _ feeling _ of the rebar, though he couldn’t see it, of twisting the strands and spreading them out, across his chest, looped back around themselves, up his arms to lash those together too. 

Corvid did not go down easily, and in some ways, that was part of his downfall. 

When everything cooled just enough to stop glowing, it was clear what Marion had done. 

There wasn’t water spraying down on them anymore, the piping must’ve been destroyed. There wasn’t a floor under them, there wasn’t walls or a  _ ceiling _ . They were suspended in a crater of a hole purely on the strength of Marion’s powers.

And Corvid looked like a grotesque art piece, a sculpture that wasn’t quite still. He was covered in still mostly-liquid metal, curving and coiling and wrapping around him like wire. His arms were above his head, completely straight, metal twining between them like a net, or fabric. 

It had curled over his shoulders and his collarbone and his throat. The only part of him that wasn’t covered by a makeshift cage was his face. 

And it  _ hurt _ .

The steel wrapped around his chest in such a way that it constricted the harsh movements needed to take in air, after expending himself like that. No doubt a rib or three was broken. The metal pressed into his skin, at his throat, and a jagged part had caught his palm, which bled underneath where it had twined around his fingertips. 

The only part of him moving was his mouth as he drew in labored breath after labored breath. He’d burned himself out.

“...Are you going to kill me...?”

It was a small mercy- an infinitesimal one, that where the blood had slicked his back Marion’s skin hadn’t charred into the metal. There was a lot of slick. What had charred tore away.    
Marion rolled over with a faint moan, his own limbs mocking him in how they struggled to move even as his mind struggled to catch up. 

He stood at the edge of the crater, the body of the floor ripped away with metal rods and pipes and electrical wires sprouting frayed around the edges of the hole like a torn off limb with bones protruding. 

The slender and brittle strands of steel, snaked in wild patterns to the edge of the crater, snaked around his arms. They were the only thing holding Corvid up. He stood, and let the rapidly cooling steel sink to anchor to the edges of the floor, and stared into the masked face. The heat still curled off his body- oily and ravenous as it radiated into nothing. And a softly salted breeze was drafting in from somewhere. The smell of the harbor. 

Oh- oh. Was he going to kill him? The question slid around his mind, and it was coated in blood and rubble and years of death, and the feeble grip of an elementary school boy, begging inaudibly through the chemical charred tissue of his throat for the hero to save the day.   
  
And for a horrible second, Marion thought he might. It would take a twitch- just a flick of his finger to send a spike of pure iron through the neck. For a horrible fractal of a broken moment, he lived in some reality where he thought he could relish in the metal restricting, twisting up, so he could watch the sheets of crimson spilling through and cease the wretchedly dogged insistence of a beating heart forever.

Five years. It had been  _ five years of this. _

He didn’t. 

He sank to his knees, and shook his head dumbly, mute.

“...Whatever you just did, I can’t see you.” He murmured. His head was tilted up, towards the darkening sky, and he wondered if he’d live to see it lighten again.

Euclidi wanted him dead, or hurt. Euclidi wanted something. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to do it- maybe he’d hand Corvid off to Blue and let the illusionist kill him. Maybe he’d let the government do it. 

His knuckles twitched, for that was all they could do. Each breath was shallow and made consciously, forced to wait in agonizing suspension between a lack of air and the pain of metal against his ribs to supply it. 

“...You’re hurting me. And if you wait long enough, I’ll be able to melt this.” That was a lie, but a feeble one. It’d take him four hours and a good meal to melt a pair of handcuffs without passing out.

The adrenaline seemed to seep out with the heat, and with it, Corvid’s grip on control. He loathed to leave Greyson in such a situation, but there was little he could do to stop it. 

He decided that Euclidi had to take him somewhere, and he could switch once he was out of this metal. 

For now, Corvid closed his eyes and sucked his stomach in and tried not to focus on the way his ribs throbbed each time blood pushed through his chest. 

The hero’s own breath stuttered, lukewarm and ashy in barely satisfying gulps. His lungs felt lined with soot. He was sure his body was caked with it.   
The pain was there, still, a howling blinder buried under the disembodied mantle of sheer willpower that had pulled him to this point and the fear that clogged his throat now was beyond mere feeling. 

There was no going back from this. There was no total recovery for how far their bodies had been pushed, and he knew that if he didn’t lapse into sleep now, and never wake up, then he would have to step forwards into that. It was a sentiment totally alien to his current position, and he pushed it down. Gathered the scraps of his tattered focus. 

He didn’t believe Corvid for a single second, that was for sure. He was only chilled with how collected his nemesis seemed, still. How the pain staggering his breath couldn’t touch the curling inflection of his tone. How it still brought his head under some fuzzy state of fear where submission was the panacea. 

He had to fight, he had to fight, still, was the only gutted thought.    
He shifted back to his feet and backed up. The metal's viscosity turned sluggish in the cooling air, it convulsed and concentrated to thick metal bands. He drew the man forwards, to settle him on (dubiously) solid ground. “I said,” he gulped, and then again, trying to wet his esophagus enough to speak, “That I don’t need you dead.”

Something was wrong with his line of sight. It spun, the world tilting while blackness closed in around the edges and what was there blurred, and split. 

Oh, right. Bloodloss. Something hit the back of his head with a force that sent a white hot flash across his eyes, and he registered belatedly that he was staring at the partially intact ceiling now.

Over, it was over. It was over. The darkness ebbed in and out, once, twice, then once more, in time for him to register the faint sound of footsteps, the crackling static of walkie-talkies and bouncing flashlight beams. Someone shouted his name. It was over. 

Euclidi blacked out.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	56. He’s Coming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, his hot superhero boyfriend found them. But I don’t want to spoil too much, do I?
> 
> Fan arts are welcome if this is ever popular enough!
> 
> ENJOY!  
> -Loki

Every part of his body buzzed and vibrated with phantom electricity, energy that wasn’t there anymore. The most he’d dealt with electricity was short, sharp blasts (which had left decent marks on his shoulder and waist) and those had hurt, but only for a little bit. 

Now, sitting here in a tank of saltwater, his skin on fire, he wished he could go back to what he’d gotten as a villain. 

Electricity had always been able to burn him. That didn’t mean he was used to the burns, not even close. They stung like, well... like salt in a wound. Or lemon juice, or alcohol. His mind was too sluggish to focus. It kept trailing off, back to the pain and what was causing it.

Everything tasted like salt. They hadn’t given him water while he was here- only that horrid bar. He wished he’d taken up Benni’s offer when she asked if he wanted some. Now his mouth tasted like salt and blood and electricity and he just wanted to spit it all out into a sink and be done with it.

His fantasies of Marion weren’t enough to distract him now. He couldn’t come up with new ones, he couldn’t sink away like he had. He was horribly, incredibly aware of every twitch of his finger and pulse of blood through his veins and every shift of water and he just wanted it all to shut up. 

Just for once. Just for now.

But the water stayed.

Wrapped round his limbs like weights of pitch black tar. And time ebbed onwards. 

When they next took him out, it was back to another of the nondescript rooms with water stains on the floor and hooks in the walls. 

Rita had entered the room as her guards locked his cuffs to the two poles running ceiling to floor in the center of the room. There was a greeting on her lips, cherry-shaped baubles bouncing merrily from her ears and a packet of sandpaper and sewing pins in her hands. 

And the next time was Benni’s room again; or a room similar, but just different enough to make it bizarrely familiar. 

The girl had looked up when the guards had gone, and this time she didn’t offer- she’d wiped the blood off his face with the sleeve of her gown, taken off the gag, and pressed a crumpled plastic water bottle half filled to his lips with her dull eyes down.

This time, he had enough common sense not to turn it down. She hadn’t given him the option, anyway. 

He gulped down the water heavily, his eyes shut, breathing hard. He didn’t stop until it was gone. 

“Fuck... ‘M sorry, I didn’t mean to drink all your water...” he lowered his head, taking a few deep breaths with an aching rib cage. Already, he felt a little better. 

“I swear Marion is coming for us... I swear, I swear it. He’s going to save you.” 

Back to the tank. Back to the saltwater and the darkness, which only got worse the more often he was put into it, instead of better.

It was beginning to blur together, all of it. Pain was pain, no matter how it was brought upon him. The guards were the same. Rita was the same.

Benni had only grimaced, a faint sliver of a smile as she backed away, and shook her head.

Benni managed to relay what little she knew about the place in whispered snatches of conversation when they were alone. 

She thought the cuffs might have microphones in them, and there were cameras in the tanks. She’d been there long enough to lose track of how many haircuts she’d been given. She’d never heard Rita raise her voice, but she’d seen her get angry before, once. 

She’d seen other prisoners too, but never the same one twice, and never more than glimpses. 

As Rita probed deeper, it became clear that Benni was resisting- slipping around questions she was asked about the genetics research, or breaking into pained fits of gasping when she was forced to try and focus on what she’d described over and over again as merely a fuzzy presence that hid Greyson’s thoughts to her.

And when they worked alone, it was pain. 

She’d show up in the room they’d chosen for him that day, sometimes holding her clipboard and sometimes holding her tool of choice. Sometimes it was already there, in a cart or box next to where they’d lashed him down. Sometimes Rita didn’t need any tools besides her guards. 

And the questions came. Repeated, rephrased, sometimes whispered into his ear as she teased the claw of a hammer along his spine, sometimes posed harshly while a flashlight shone into his eyes and hands twisting his arms back, sometimes in a soft tone, while they sat together and watched a tank of water fill. 

Always the same questions, digging, searching for the crumbling chink’s in Greyson’s stand of determination that she could dig her nails into with the same, neutral pleasant aptitude that showed glimpses only sometimes of the sinister intent driving her method. 

It was eternity amplified, there in the dark, skin-warm chamber, silence and saltwater ebbing on over Greyson’s scars and wound tattered skin.

The guards were back. The cold rush of air from the chamber unsealing, the hands lifting him out. But there was a difference to it; an urgency. They hadn’t brought the wheelchair this time, he was being pulled along between two sets of arms wrapped around his, and they were clearly irritable, snapping back in forth to each other in sharp, hushed tones as they headed up the floors.

They stopped in Rita’s lab. 

It was in chaos. 

Files coated the tables, loose pages fluttering underfoot as several more guards marched back and forth between the enjoined rooms, packing things away and calling back and forth to each other. Two armoured men stood by the door with rifles. A medical cart had tipped over- the metal frame and broken glass surrounding it kicked away into a corner instead of cleaned up.

Benni was being held on the far end of the room, where they were bringing Greyson, held between two of her own handlers, and she was watching the progress with a pale face and shallow gasps of panic as she tugged unconsciously at the arms wrapped around her neck to give herself breathing room.

She lurched when she saw greyson, the shining glitter of tear stains reflecting in the bright light as she gasped out, “Grey! Are y-you-- are you okay?!”

It hadn’t been immediately obvious that something was off, but the second he realized they hadn’t brought a wheelchair, alarm bells went off in his head. 

He didn’t have the energy to try to walk, to even keep himself from being dragged to the room. His foot cut on a piece of glass still left on the floor. 

He hadn’t been given time to come to or comprehend what was happening. Greyson blinked once, again, three times. Rita had never so much as yelled, he couldn’t imagine her anything other than perfectly calm. Something was very, very wrong. 

“I-I’m-I’m fine, Benni. I’m fine... what happened? What’s going on?” He’d mostly given up on asking that question, but this seemed to call for it. 

His underarms were getting sore from where the men gripped him, and he scrambled to find footing.

"I'm not sure. An emergency," Benni sobbed, eyes squeezing shut as she tried to catch her breath, "They woke all the guards that weren't on shift. They're going to move everything and leave, but no one knows where, some of th-them think there might be a security breach."

She shuddered as the guard shifted, shrinking into herself. But they were only adjusting their grip- stoically disinterested in their captive.

"This hasn't happened before, Grey. I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what they're going to do with us," she babbled, clearly on her last threadbare nerve, which dissolved into mindless whimpering, because Rita strode in from the hall, and she looked angry. 

Still pulling her hair out from under the unbuttoned lab coat and tying it into a bun, she yelled instructions over the din, "-done with the database, take what you have and leave, the first van is gone it two minutes and for fuck's sake I told you to  _ put a gag on him!" _

Benni's lips were moving in a silent whisper, eyes filled with terror as the guard muttered an apology and made to obey, and the others responded as well, tramping feet loudening as they began to exit the room.

"Put him on the wall," Rita snapped, gesturing to the other prisoner, and as Greyson's guards pinned his cuffs to the brick behind them, she pulled a pistol from her belt.

He didn’t meet Benni’s terror with fear. Greyson grinned. The last time that had happened, genuinely, he was with Marion. 

“I told you.” He murmured. “I have a hot superhero boyfriend and he’s coming to rescue us. Whatever you do, Benni, fight them. Make it take as long as possible to get you out of here. Make sure you’re here for him to find you.” 

Greyson gave Dr. Fennel a grin full of malice, a gaze filled with utter loathing. “My name is Greyson Calva. Marion is coming for me. He loves me.”

And this time, it wasn’t a hopeful prayer. It was a promise. He was coming.

Benni, for all intents and purposes, was lost to the conversation. She was shaking her head, shrieking something into the gag that might have been begging.

Rita's eyes flashed a dark light. The guard to his left jumped aside with a badly concealed curse as she raised the gun, pressed it to his pinned up arm, and pulled the trigger.

The bang reverbated at a deafening pitch and the bullet went straight through into the wall, blood welling and flowing immediately.

Rita grasped him by the neck, pressing his head up to meet her eyes. "Your hero will come here and find no one. Or, he will find your body," she bit out, sliding the muzzle down somewhat to press to the crook of his elbow, "Strung up pretty for him on the wall. Tell me where you stored the research drives." 

Greyson  _ screamed _ . There wasn’t a much better word for it. They hadn’t gagged him, and of all the clever tortures she’d wagered against him, nothing compared to the simple, sudden pain of a bullet through arm. He was willing to bed the bone was shattered.

“If you didn’t find it in my base then it’s gone. Blown up or-or something. It was there, I didn’t get to it before Euclidi caught me.” 

But Marion had had two of the drives. The one with the audio, and the one with the video recordings. There were more, he knew, but if she didn’t have them then someone did. Marion had said they recovered a lot. 

“There was a hiding spot for them but I didn’t have time to put them there... If you don’t have them, I don’t know where they are...”

The scientist backed away a step, realization dawning after a moment and then twisting into hatred. "Fucking  _ Phillips _ ," she hissed, as if to herself, then gestured to Benni. "You. He's telling the truth?" 

She waited for the frenetic nod, then pressed the still hot muzzle of the gun to the hollow of Greyson's throat. "If you struggle, my guards have permission to do what they must to keep you quiet. Take him to the vans," she ordered the ever present soldiers, already turning away to Benni as they uncuffed him from the wall. 

"As for you.."

Benni went silent, horribly, painfully silent as the doctor cocked her gun. The empty cartridge clattered to the tile as she leveled it between the wide, tearful eyes. "I think you've been a wonderful patient dear, don't misunderstand. But everyone must be discharged at some point."

For a horrible, agonizing moment, he was frozen. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel the pain of the hole straight through his arm as he was lowered from the wall. 

Then he thrashed. He kicked and cried as hard as he could (which wasn’t very hard, he was in an awfully weakened state.)

Benni was his responsibility. She was here because of him, however detached that connection was. He couldn’t just let her die. 

“Let go of her you goddamn  _ bastard _ !” He shouted. “Let  _ go _ !”

Rita glanced at him for a second, a fraction of a second, something forming on her lips, and that was her first mistake. 

There was shouting from down the hallway. A sudden barrage of gunfire, too, from one of the automatics. Shouting voices, cracking with distress from the walkie talkies at the guard's belts, and the unease and before Rita could turn back they had dropped their prisoners. Benni and Grey were released in a moment of panic, a chorus of 'fuck-fuck!' and 'he's here-shit-' as they began to make for the exits. 

Benni was scrambling away, feet catching on the hem of her gown as she crawled backwards, and Rita swore and aimed the gun at her again, and that was her second mistake. 

Through the muffle of the gag Benni screamed-

And the wall exploded outward. 

A twanging strand of wire flew out of the debris, wrapped itself around Rita's wrist, and threw her with a cut off scream to the other end of the room, and Euclidi--visor blazing and hands poised in control of the metal snakes around him- burst into the room. 

Greyson crumpled. His left arm went limp at his side, adrenaline coursing through enough to lower it to a dull throb as he forced himself towards Benni.

The room was chaos, it was disaster, it was overstimulating. He couldn’t focus, not with this and the pain and the drugs.

All he could do was scoop Benni into his lap with his good arm and wrap himself around her. He’d seen Marion’s powers, and as much as he trusted him, he knew how uncontrollable explosions could get. 

“I told you.” He whispered. “He’s come for us. He’s going to take us out of here. We’re going to be safe.”

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


	57. Not Like This. Never Like This

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YES I know it’s been a while please don’t kill me. We’re workin on it.
> 
> -Loki

Euclidi was poised between captive and captor- intently watching Rita as she groaned and rolled to her knees, cradling her wrist. 

He glanced back at the two, at Benni's curled up, shaking frame, at the wounds, the blood, the thin and now ripped hospital gowns. There was a tense line to his shoulders and an almost furious twist of a frown on his lips that deepened as he reached to his throat. 

The sound of a zipper, a rustling swoosh, and he was left in just his hoodie- the heavy warmth of his leather jacket settling around Grey's shoulders, furry with the sherpa fabric inside, velvety with age and use on the pebbly grain of the outer surface. 

Rita had pulled herself to her feet, holding an automatic a guard had dropped and she aimed it at the hero now, fear visible in her narrowed eyes. "You don't know what you're doing," she was warning in an icy tone, backing slowly away. "You have no idea what you're messing with, boy."

Euclidi stared at her for a second. 

"Oh, shut the fuck up," he said, holding out a hand in her direction. The metal shifted; Rita gasped and aimed the weapon at Greyson instead. 

The few bullets that escaped flew wide, because the gun itself was yanked out of her hands, and this time, the wiring was not so gentle. It wrapped round her neck, and something-  _ something _ made a horrible snapping noise as she was lashed backwards and tied to the metal frame of the table anchored in the center of the room- the same one they'd tied Greyson to when he'd arrived. 

Her form slumped, lifeless, but the hero was already turning away, his hands, peeling off the gloves as he crouched back besides the two. 

His tone was soft, and up close, there was a faint tremble. 

_ "Amore. Il mio amore," _ Marion whispered, breaking off for an agonized second as he reached up to brush a hand over Greyson's cheek, as if forgetting himself. And then- "--we- we need to go now. The child- are they hurt?" 

Greyson yelped and pulled Benni tighter against himself. He hadn’t yet gotten Benni’s gag off, but it was hardly a priority. Priority was keeping her alive. 

Three holes appeared on the wall in front of him, which shouldn’t have shocked him. His ears rang with both the gunshots and Benni’s muffled sobs. He didn’t want to look. He couldn’t.

He’d only half registered the jacket over his shoulders, the sudden warmth that smelled like Marion.

“It’s over.” He whispered. “It’s over. He came. I told you. He’s come to save us. He loves me.” 

His eyes flew open and met the visor that wasn’t Marion’s. That belonged to Euclidi. He longed for the blue eyes that had been the first and last to look on him with love in so long.

“I don’t- I don’t know. I don’t think so... not badly... Marion, get her out. I promised her, Marion, you have to take her first...”

"I'm taking both of you. We're leaving now," The hero murmured in a level tone, and he was placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, taking his arm in one hand to turn it gently and inspect the wound. "Try to stay awake. Talk to me if you can, tell me where you're hurt," Euclidi was saying, and the words were practiced as he checked over Grey- most likely what he normally did when rescuing a person. 

Benni had latched onto the blond's shirt, burying her face into his chest, choking around the gag as she sobbed. She shifted as Marion grasped the hastily tied knot and undid it, whimpering as it was loosened and spitting it out with a gasp. 

"No. N-ngh-noooo," the girl was keening softly, flinching away from Marion, and he pulled back, softly murmuring, "Non temere, non temere. Courage, little heart. I will not hurt you. I'm here to help. Grey-" the man glanced back to him, "She trusts you. Help her trust me- I need to be able to pick her up."

“It hurts everywhere, Marion, it hurts everywhere...”

He fumbled over his words. “This is...” he laughed softly, almost in shock. “This is the hot superhero boyfriend I told you about. It’s Marion. He’s going to save us, I told you he would.” He looked up at Marion, almost desperate. “Lower your visor. She was- in some anarchist group. One of my supporters. She doesn’t like Euclidi.” 

His right hand, his good hand, ghosted over her back. “He’s not taking us to another facility.” Greyson rambled. “He’s not going to give us to the NHU. He’s good. He’s not corrupted. He’s- he’s...”

“...My Marion...”

Marion stilled for a moment, and the visor disintegrated, leaving behind the flooded concern in his eyes as they flicked between the two. 

"That's right. I won't take you back," he breathed, "Never- never again. You're safe. You need to be brave a little longer, now."

His brows were drawn together and tears shone in the irises, but his voice was steady, determined as he leaned forwards, murmuring soft nothings as he wrapped an arm around Grey, focused on calming her down. 

Benni would hardly look at the man, and she'd shrieked and struggled in fear when he took her in his arms, but eventually she settled on his back, thin arms locked around his neck and eyes shut tightly as he picked Greyson up bridal style instead- murmuring soft apologies as he couldn't help jostling the wounds littering his body. 

Glass and rubble crunched under his boots as he left the room at an almost run. The metal he'd gotten- pulled from the walls if the ruptured cracks littering the hallway were any sign to go off- slithered along at his feet, and the faint opalescent glow in his eyes signified the use of his powers as he scanned the abandoned hallways ahead of them.

And then, it was a cool breeze, a loose draft of summer night air that caressed the ruff of the jacket round Grey's shoulders and dust speckled black curls, and then it was open sky, black trees towering into a black forest beyond and yellow floodlights, and he was shifting to grab the walkie talkie at his belt and saying something into it as he hurried into the cover of the trees.

Greyson let his eyes flutter shut, only small whimpers escaping. There was a puddle of blood under where his wrist had laid. 

It was over. Benni was safe. He was safe, or would be soon. It was done. Marion was here.

  
  


Charlie had been listening to the radio, muted, while she waited, but she silenced it the second Marion’s voice crackled over the walkie talkie on her dash.

“Do you have him? Is he alright?”

The crackle warped his voice for a second as he replied, " 'firmative. I've got him, and one more. They both need medic. I'm gonna put them in the back and drive if you could take a look at them. You got blankets back there? First aid?"

He let the device fall back to his side on its strap as he stepped into the clearing, heading to the back of the truck. "I've got a nurse here to look at you two. I've gotta let go for a while, okay, Grey? You'll be okay. You're gonna be fine," he murmured, half for himself as well as he began to maneuver them under the truck's battered canopy.

“I’ve got everything I had on hand. I’ll see what I can do.”

Charlie climbed out of her truck the second Marion was in view, lifting Benni off of his back, soothing the quiet complaints. With one hand, she unfolded some blankets to lay the two on, then climbed in with them.

Greyson’s pained expression was slowly going slack. He was tired, so, so tired.

The last thing Marion let go of was his hand- the phantom press of lips against bruised knuckles before he pulled away and in a few moments the car lurched and began to move, shuddering over potholes as he turned out onto a thin, overgrown back road and began to head away from the building.

Marion kept the headlights out as he drove, sticking to canopy covered roads and the shadowy back lanes trailing behind miles of farmland that slowly turned to suburban back streets that turned to dark alleys and neon signs, and skulking figures outside bars, and then another, manicured lane of housing.

He stopped in a back alley, lush shrubbery and weathered old glass panes and unused cars lining the faded white fences as he pulled the back open, "Sorry for the bumpy ride- how're they doing?”

Benni was curled up against Greyson, and it seemed like she’d have been laying on his chest completely if it weren’t for Charlie. Greyson didn’t seem to be fully conscious. Not unresponsive- he tilted his head towards Marion’s voice- but very much heading that way.

“It’s... It’s rough, Marion. Benni is malnourished and she’s got signs of beating, but Greyson...” she trailed off. There wasn’t words to describe his condition.

“I don’t... I don’t treat torture patients. It’s bad, Marion. It’s meticulous. It’s just... it’s bad. That’s all I can... all I can really say.”

He nodded, flipping the back window up to hop onto the tailgate. "I let Lot know we've got one more than we thought. She's getting something ready," he murmured, "For now let's get them inside and I'll see what I can do with them."

It wasn't a hopeful prospect; Benni likely couldn’t take much of his brand of healing without the right nutrition and Greyson likely less. The man was lighter in his arms than he'd ever been before, as Marion nudged a back gate open with his foot and hurrying along the lamplit flagstones dotting the grass to the back door of the house.

He knocked urgently, checking on Charlie over his shoulder. 

Greyson pressed his face against his chest and breathed in the familiar scent of his hero. The adrenaline was gone. So was the fear. It left behind its table scraps- pain and exhaustion, overwhelming exhaustion. He wanted to sleep in Marion’s arms until the sun supernova’d.

Benni wasn’t hard to carry, though she wasn’t quite convinced she was safe. Her arms were pulled tight against her chest, and her eyes were on Marion. On Greyson.

Charlie gave him an anxious glance.

Marion returned the glance with a faint smile as the door began to unlock and swallowed around a lump in his throat. He shifted back, feeling the frigid cold of Grey's still damp hospital gown at his knees where the hem of his jacket ended and rubbing slow circles into an unwounded portion of his leg where he was holding him.

Golden light haloed Lottë's frame for a second as she welcomed them in. A middle aged, young looking woman still in perfectly pressed slacks and a creamy, laced up shirt, with her hair tied back in a pink handkerchief, she set aside the wine glass in her hand and ushered them in. Her voice was a little different in person, still brusque and lilting, but a little softer in the night air, "There you are, come inside, darlings. I'm so glad you made it safely. Are we all accounted for?"

"Thanks, Lotts, yeah. They need warm beds. Food, water," Marion murmured, stepping in and aside to let Charlie and Benni pass him. 

  
  


“They need more than that...” Charlie said as she hurried in. Benni was shivering in her arms, but she didn’t seem too badly hurt. It was Greyson that was the issue.

The front of his hospital gown was heavy with blood, and it was only getting worse the longer his wrist was allowed to free bleed.

Greyson tilted his head towards Marion, hiding his face. He’d only vaguely recognized Charlie, and what he did remember of her did not earn her any favor in his book, but Lottë was entirely uncharted territory.

“Mari... take us to your apartment...”

Marion shifted to press a hand against his head carefully, holding Greyson as close as he could without squeezing him, "We're alright here, love, we're safe. I promise, " he whispered softly, "We're going to get some rest in a bit. I'm going to heal you as much as I can and then we'll sleep. Stay awake with me until then, okay?"

Lottë finished locking the door behind them and placed a hand gently on Marion’s arm, "This way," she ushered them down the hallway, pointing him up a set of stairs, "I’ll be up in a moment, Marion. We'll put the child in here," she added to Charlie, and continued on down the hallway to a different bedroom.

The man was still checking Grey over, for signs of concussion, but it didn't seem to be one of the many visible problems. He noted with a frown that the tourniquet Charlie must have placed was soaked through, and quickened his pace, closing the attic door behind him and setting Greyson down on the quilted bedspread to grab gauze rolls out of the kit on the nightstand and reach for his arm, murmuring softly, "Keep talking to me,  _ affetto _ . I need you to stay awake, a little longer. Can you tell me your name?" 

Charlie followed Lottë down the hall, Benni squirming in her arms at being separated from Greyson, from the only one she trusted. Charlie petted her hair gently, reassuring her that he was just down the hall.

Greyson’s breaths were ragged, whether from fear or pain it was hard to tell. The tourniquet wasn’t the only thing soaked through- movement had reopened hardly-closed scabs, and more recent wounds were still bleeding sluggishly. Marion might as well wrap his entire body in bandages.

“My name is Greyson. Marion is coming for me. He loves me...” he murmured, almost on autopilot. He’d repeated it so much, it was almost the default.

"...That's, that's right, baby. That's right. I'm here," Marion repeated softly his voice going tender, his hands ghosting over the wound. He pulled in a sharp breath as the powers pushed into Greyson's skin to expound the severity of the break to him; it was pierced cleanly through, a major vessel or two broken and a significant portion of the lower radius shattered. He hesitated, and began to heal it. 

He couldn't risk going too deep- not while there were bone fragments loose still, and he knew Grey could hardly handle anything right now. 

Marion hardly had the knowledge of a med practitioner, but he'd rescued enough victims to know the glazed over delerium of shock, blood loss and drugs, and he knew that the next step, after closing the wounds, was to see about a transfusion, and get whatever they'd had him on out of his bloodstream. In the meantime he bit back the helpless feeling that was struggling to overtake his training, and continued softly, "You're not there anymore. Can you say my name? Do you know me?" 

The only upside was that the energy draining properties of his healing on top of Grey's exhaustion would ensure he'd go out like a light and miss the pain for at least a while. So he barely staunched the bloodflow, then applied antibiotics and began to wrap a fresh cloth round his arm, intending to come back to it once Greyson was out to take care of the stitching.

“You’re my Marion... you’re my boyfriend. Mine...” his head tilted towards him, then away again, then back to him. 

His blood was getting on Lottë’s quilt. His blood was getting on Marion’s hands. His blood was getting in his hair. On the steps up to the attic. In the hall. On the porch, in the truck. His blood seemed to be everywhere but his body. 

He needed a bath, and probably something to eat and to drink, but those were hardly _ possible,  _ in his state. It seemed like if he were given any water, it would just fall out the holes in his skin. 

“My Marion still hasn’t kissed me yet. My Marion woulda kissed me... are you real...? Lots’a things aren’t real. I hope m’ Marion is real. Don’t care about the rest ‘ve it. Kiss me.”

Marion hadn't yet broached under the hem of the still damp garment. Hadn't dared to, selfishly, cowardly. Just moving away from the gunshot to gently check up his arm had him biting back a convulsive gag. There were patches of skin on his forearm that were just--gone, as if something had been grated over in harsh, merciless swatches, and he could see darker red spots where small, sharp things had dug in under the already scarred tissue. It wasn't even fresh. 

And Greyson was asking to kiss him.

Marion was sure his face reflected at least a little of the horror he felt. He stared back at Grey, at his face, even paler than the sun-deprived man he'd fallen for. The pillow around his head was dark, and he could see Grey's lashes fluttering faintly, the way his eyes weren't quite all there, like some sick version of a snow white.

When he leaned forwards, it was because something had cracked in his heart, and he wasn't quite sure if it was a physical pain or not. When he kissed Grey, it was because he knew that the blond wouldn't be able to taste the saltwater of the tears on his cheeks over the metallic tang of blood on his badly split lip.

"I'm here. I'm yours. I'm staying with you, Asterotto, don't leave me," he begged, a note of desperation creeping into his tone. "Stay awake, love. You need to stay alive."

Greyson didn’t have the focus or the energy to do much in the way of kissing back. He shifted, his tongue darting out to lick the blood out of Marion’s mouth, but only succeeding in staining both of their lips red. 

And because he could only taste blood, and perhaps salt, and could only feel the ghosting of lips over his, he wasn’t quite sure if any of it was real or a very good hallucination.

He didn’t remember being put in the tank, but it had started to blur together long before this, and the tank was the same every time. No point in remembering it.

“I’m tired.” He whispered. “I’m tired. Life never gave me anything ‘nyway. Why don’t we just make a deal... t’ see each other on the other side...? Okay...?”

"Not like this. Never this way, love, stay."

Marion's voice had pulled back- there was a grated quality to his tone and a delicate press on Grey's side as he pressed over the next bleeding wound he could find, then scrambling for the first aid kit, almost knocking it off the nightstand in his search.

"I am begging you. Greyson, if you can understand me. Not like this. Just a little bit longer. Fight, please fight," Marion was whispering, half panicked though he tried not to let it leak into his voice- as if it weren't already too late for that. He'd found the blood type test, ripping the packet and shaking out the lancet and swab.

"I'll get help, I'll- mio dio, I'll do it myself. Stay. Stay,  _ please… _ "

“I hurt you too bad when we fought... don’t wanna fight you ‘nymore. Don’t wanna fight...” his eyes fluttered shut, and didn’t blink back open. 

“My Marion. Protect her for me. Please, she... I promised her... ‘s my fault she was there... You’ve gotta keep her safe.” His hand patted over the quilt in his general direction until it made contact with some part of him, and tugged on the fabric. 

“Tired... ‘m so tired, Marion... couldn’t sleep... didn’t let me sleep... I’m sorry, I can’t... I’m just so tired.” 

His lips fell shut, his grip falling from his sleeve. If they didn’t get a doctor in, quick, it could be life or death. It already was life or death.

Charlie knocked on the door to the attic. She didn’t wait for an answer to slip inside. 

Her blood ran cold the second she saw Greyson unconscious on the bed. 

“The hell have you been doing? Go, be useful. Get me a-a metal spoon. Or spatula. Heat it over the stove, it’s gotta be hot. Tourniquets don’t solve all our problems, Marion.”

Though his stomach lurched at the implications of her command, Marion nodded frantically as he jumped to his feet, never ceasing his work on the test card.

"Lottë should have electrosurgery equipment downstairs, she was collecting first aid for us. The bullet wound's closed," he rushed out as he bolted for the doorway.

When he returned, it was with a hemostasis kit, and a cooking spoon, the shaft still glowing a bit as he gingerly held the rubber handle. He handed it to her and began to set up, breathing out, "Passed the test off to Lots. She's gonna bring up stuff for a transfusion. Charlie, don't let him- don't-"

Marion cut himself short, snapping his jaw shut. He knew what was happening had to happen- knew what he was setting up even as he unzipped the kit. Knew that Charlie was a professional, and she was  _ helping  _ Grey. Still, he couldn't quite quell the rising panic faster than it bubbled at the underside of his skin. He knew his breath was erratic. But the nurse would need assistance. There was no room to let his body react on its own memories.

"What can I do?" 

She fished a lighter and a pocket knife from her back pocket, her phone falling out and tumbling to the floor when she did. Spoon in one hand, pocket knife in the other, she cut open the hospital gown and tugged it out from underneath him.

Her eyes profiled and cataloged each injury. Each puncture or burn or cut seemed worse than the last. She’d have to start somewhere, though. 

She picked a hole under his rib cage, where it must’ve just missed his lungs. She couldn’t fathom how a wound like that was created. She didn’t want to think about it.

Charlie tossed aside the knife to heat the spoon again with the lighter, and without hesitation, pressed it to the wound.

Instantly, the smell of burning flesh filled the attic bedroom, and she held it firm despite the tears in her eyes. Charlie took a deep breath. She could break down when it was over, but it wasn’t over yet.

She picked up the lighter again.

Marion didn't dare break the silence to repeat his question, lest her concentration slip, and simply focused on readying the kit, and pulling the nightstand over to clear it and lay out the heating instruments for her. He nearly dropped the electrosurgery pencil at the first sound of sizzling, then set it down deliberately slow, and murmured to her that it was ready to use.

He moved off to the other side of the bed, bringing some bandaging with him, and reached for a long, weeping slash torn into his hip, starting to clean and close it.

“Be careful with that. He’s incredibly weak already- only so much his body can take.” She set down the spoon in favor of the electrosurgery pencil. 

Slowly, ever so slowly, she worked her way up his chest. Her hands were shaking even if she’d forced her mind to empty. 

Charlie hesitated at the mark sunk into his throat- surely, that would’ve killed him, right? And yet he was still here, breathing, his heart beating. She decided to leave that one alone. 

“I- just- make sure he doesn’t stop breathing. I don’t have a heart monitor.”

"M' watching him. I'm watching," came the reply, delayed and shaky. Like Charlie, he'd sunken into numb action. It was an occupational necessity sometimes in such fields of work; the trance-like state distancing a part of himself that couldn't quite fathom what had happened.

The noise and smell and the faint waft of heat weren't lost to him. Marion wouldn't, afterwards, honestly be able to say how he hadn't shut down altogether. Maybe it was the sight of Greyson's chest, still rising and falling, or the pulse in his blood that still throbbed in a flowing river past each place his powers sunk into. He stopped using his powers and switched to the kit's clotting gels- agonizingly slow, but it was still progress.

He worked, and lost himself to it, so that he hardly noticed the sound of Lottë entering the room with a case and an IV stand she began to set up. 

Charlie hardly glanced at her. She trusted that Lottë knew what she was doing. She had to. 

“Marion, help me flip him over...” her voice was quiet. Somber. And so, so numb. She’d cauterized and bandaged as much as she could- it was a shame they couldn’t take him to a hospital. The lack of sterilization was nagging at the back of her mind. The back of the truck had hardly been clean, either. He’d be extremely lucky if something didn’t get infected.

Marion finished with the rows of zipstitches he was securing and obeyed silently, sight line locked onto his task. As he let his powers settle back into himself again and carefully adjusted Grey’s head on the pillows so he’d be able to breathe, he gave a strangled little noise at the sight of his back. They were hardly halfway finished. 

He’d long since discarded those hideous metal cuffs round his wrists- they were probably in a ruined heap of aluminum and wires in the woods somewhere. They’d chafed open the skin at some point and there were raw marks, and Lottë had slipped in besides him to clean up the blood and secure a monitor round his wrist with gentle motions and a mask of repose locked down over her features. The IV, she’d offered to Charlie, and asked her in no uncertain terms to double check the setup before they went through with pumping any of the saline solution or blood.

It was a gruelling road to stabilizing him. Marion found his glance flicking over and over again to the Grey’s face. To the veins showing through his closed lids and the limp line of his mouth. 

It took two hours, in all, to do everything he could. To heal, close, and clean, and he was left to check Greyson’s vital signs every ten seconds or so as he watched Charlie. Lottë had returned downstairs to mind Benni once she was unneeded, with a quick squeeze to Marion’s shoulder. 

There was only fear in his eyes, and they were overflowing with the questions he didn’t dare voice. 

The only mercy in this was that it was over. It was over, and Greyson was unconscious. Greyson didn’t have to see the agony on his lover’s face. Marion didn’t have to see the pain in his lover’s eyes. 

Charlie finished the last of the bandaging with a tired sigh. Greyson was practically a mummy at this point. The bandages would be a pain in the ass to change. She stood. 

“I’m going to go ask Lottë if she has any clothes that will fit him. You... may want to clean yourself up.” This would be a pain in the ass to explain to her husband. Either she could go home covered in blood, or go home wearing another woman’s clothes. Neither of which could have desirable results. 

And Marion was left alone, with nothing but the constant beep of Greyson’s heartbeat and the ragged, quiet sound of his breathing.

❖⊱⋆❛❜⋆⊰❖


End file.
